Mistaken Identity
by RebelByrdie
Summary: After a mass breakout from Ely State Prison Las Vegas turns into a warzone. Sara, suspended from the lab, stumbles onto a case of her own. Only if Sara and Sofia Curtis can't solve their unofficial case, two friends will die. Sara/Sofia.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: **The Author does not, nor does she claim to, own the television show _CSI_. All characters, affiliated symbols and recognizable content belong to the rightful creators and the television networks that they are contracted to. All "original" characters, locations, events and circumstances are, unless otherwise noted, fictional. Any resemblance to persons: living, dead or otherwise copyrighted, are unintended and by occur only by coincidence. No financial gain from the production or public distribution of this story. The content is for entertainment only and no harm or offense is intended.

**Rated M for Mature:** Scenes of graphic violence, language, drug and alcohol abuse, references to rape, sexual abuse, nudity and adult content pertaining to both homosexual and heterosexual scenes.

**Spoiler Warning:** The following story, more or less, follows the set cannon and universe of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation up to 'Dead Doll' Other episodes up to and possibly including those from the new season can and will be referenced. Also this is the second story in a series of three and it is highly recommended that 'Violated' be read first.

**Author's Note:** I meant to have this story finished and posted months ago, but real life has a way of interfering sometimes. Ah well, it's better late then never, right. This story actually started out as an answer to a challenge fic, only it never worked out the way I wanted it to. The story has gone through countless plot overhauls, but the basic framework has remained the same. It's going to be a great ride, hope you brought a helmet.

**Mistaken Identity**

**A CSI Tale**

**By RebelByrdie**

_Prologue_

Business, his father had always told him, was not to be done over dinner. His time, though, was limited, and his business was vital. He propped his elbows on either side of his plate and steepled his forefingers, and looked at the man sitting on the other side of the table.

He only hired the best and the word was that Jorge Ruiz Trevino was the best at what he did. Trevino didn't have much to say but when he did speak, people listened. The swarthy man had a voice that didn't quite fit with his heavily muscled body and diamond hard black eyes.

"Do you have a picture, Boss?"

He did have a picture, and considering the circumstances, he was lucky to have found them. Both had been clipped out of The Sun. He slid the crisp and carefully kept photos across the table face down. Trevino looked at the photos quickly and discreetly slipped them into his pocket and his face remained unchanged, and completely blank.

"I assume you'll destroy those after the fact, Jorge."

"Of course." The Latino's face had remained like granite, unchanged and unreadable. "Some men of my profession would not do this, sir. Women and children are generally considered espectadores, bystanders. It is not honorable."

He leaned back and looked Trevino over. He didn't personally believe in honor amongst thieves, but he had apparently found the one assassin that did.

"With the money I am offering, there's nothing you can't replace." He smiled, "Even your honor."

It only took a moment, but Trevino nodded, "And the details?"

They were surrounded by people, but were in no danger of being overheard, and anyone foolish enough to ease drop would never repeat what they heard. Being the Boss came with a certain set of privileges and obedience was one of them.

"There will be an unlocked blue sedan with a full tank of gas, the keys in the ignition and twenty-thousand dollars in the trunk."

Trevino didn't even blink at the number.

"Think of it as a down payment."

Their food was forgotten and their appointment was almost at it's end.

"I need two more things, Boss. I will need how-do-you-say-it? I will need a patsy in case things become _complicated_._" _The assassin pushed his plate out of the way, "I will also need a distraction."

The man that called himself the boss grinned. It might have been, at one time, a mischievous smile. He had just ordered a hit on two women, it was not a mischievous grin. It, instead, bordered on malevolent.

"As for a patsy, take your pick. I own half the men in this place." He looked around, completely at ease, "And don't worry about the distraction, I've got that covered. All you need to worry about is killing one civil servant bitch and a teenager. It'll be a walk in the park, Jorge. A _walk in the park_.

Author's Note II: Reviews are greatly appreciated!


	2. Chapter I: The Distraction

_Author's Note: I am working towards updating once a week, and I got off to a great start. Work was a little hectic, but I'm hoping to catch up or even *gasp* get ahead of schedule on my days off. Also this story has not been beta-read so until I find another victim, I mean helper, all mistakes are mine. Now last, but not least, I am also posting this story on my livejournal...which I'm still learning to use. If you want to read it there, my livejournal is: .com/. _

_That is all, now go and read this wonderfully long chapter and don't forget to r&r!_

_Chapter I_

_The Distraction_

The vinyl seats were held together with duct-tape, had broken springs and were sticky to the touch. The air conditioner only stirred the hot, stale air, and did absolutely nothing for the smell. The windows were barred shut for safety. Frank Jacobs kept his complaints to himself, though. Not that _his_ silence encouraged any of the twenty teenagers from moaning, groaning and cursing. He wasn't surprised, it wasn't like he was taking a group of Eagle Scouts on a camping trip. His boys he would eat Scouts for dinner and have room leftover for dessert. This wasn't a pleasure trip by any stretch of the imagination.

Frank had been working in juvenile corrections and parole for going on fifteen years. It wasn't a job that got easier with time and experience. The kids got younger, more violent and more jaded, and there were more of them every year. The boys with him today were in danger of becoming beyond his help. Gangs, drugs, death: life was hard on the street. He knew he wasn't going to get through to all of them, or even most of them. If he could get through to one, though, the trip would be more than worth it. Ely State Prison wasn't a place most people went voluntarily, but he went four times a year. Every trip he took the boys that were on the brink of going too far. This was his last-ditch effort to save them.

Ritchie Inman, his right hand man, was trying to keep the peace and the driver ignored them completely. They were almost there, Frank checked his watch and his clipboard one more time.

They'd brought twenty kids with them on this trip. The youngest of them was thirteen and the oldest had just turned seventeen. Not a single on of them had to shave, but their rapsheets already rivaled their adult counterparts. He had white, black, Korean, Mexican, Salvadoran, and Chinese boys with difrint gang aligances with plenty to prove. It was a powder keg just waiting for a spark.

A sudden hush fell over the bus when they reached the prison gates. High walls topped with razor wire, guard towers with spot lights and guards armed with semi machine guns made everything suddenly more _real_. Ely State wasn't juvie and it wasn't county lockup, it was the real hardcore deal. The Prison was a massive square compound whose nucleus was cut in two by the central buildings. The sparse green patches of inmate tended grass stood out sharply against the dirt and dust of the natural desert. The prison looked neither kind nor welcoming; it was an oddity in the bleak and unforgiving landscape that lay only nine miles away from the town it took its name from.

Most of the boys were from the Las Vegas or Carson City metro-areas and were far more used to glittering lights and endless stretches of housing projects. It was the first in a series of shocks that they would have to deal with. The bus rolled through the "business" gates and Frank got ready for the long, grueling day ahead. These boys weren't visitors, and they weren't going to be treated like it. They were about to be stripped, searched, booked and given prison uniforms and identification. They would be given the same treatment and consideration as any other man in the prison. If that wasn't enough, which it usually wasn't, there were some men who were going to lay out exactly what was waiting for them. Those who thought their "boys" on the inside would take up for them were about to get a rude awakening. They all thought they would be sitting safe and sound in a big room listening to lectures and watching videos. They couldn't be any more off base. This wasn't going to be a spectator sport. Their parents, guardians or the state when applicable had agreed that this was their last and best hope.

The bus screeched to a halt at the Ely Prisoner Transfer Center at 10:04 am the teenage thugs, bad boys and gangbangers found that they weren't in Vegas anymore.

* * *

The administrative wing, as the hallway of offices and meeting rooms was called, could have been located anywhere: a warehouse, a low-rent office building, or even the back-hallways and service areas of a hotel. The bars on the windows and thick steel doors were more then enough of a reminder that the offices were apart of a prison. The walls were utilarian gray and the floors were poured concrete covered by a cheap carpet. It was a somewhat overwhelming experience, especially for a job interview.

"Well, Mister Doakes, you have an excellent resume." Ellen Powers, Assistant Warden, smiled at the man sitting on the other side of her desk. "And a wonderful letter of recommendation. Any corporation would be thrilled to have you. So you've worked at Tangiers, Circus Circus and Mandalay Bay, and now you're applying _here_."

The forty-something man sighed, "I have a gambling problem, Ms. Powers. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, "A very serious one, and quite frankly I almost lost my wife and daughters because of it. I _need_ this job." He licked his lips, "And I am willing to do whatever you need me to."

A small part of that was, a very small part, was true. Oliver had a gambling problem, a wife and two daughters and a _very_ big problem. He didn't need the low-level accounting job at the prison, though. The job he was already working was going to set everything right again. Then he would just stay away from temptation. No more high-stakes poker games until the crack of dawn, no more high-rollers blackjack or craps marathons. He was getting out of the grave he'd dug and he would be done once and for all.

He licked his lips again, and would swear he could hear his thundering heartbeat echo in the small room. "Despite my little problem, I have a very solid work ethic."

A small smile crossed Powers' face, "Well, Oliver, we're all about second chances here."

This was his second, or was it his third, chance and he couldn't mess it up. It was all business, his business, to keep his family together. He _had_ to do this, he didn't have a choice.

Oliver's smile was wane and his handshake was a little on the clammy side. "I'm sorry, Ellen."

She dropped his hand, "I beg your pardon?"

He looked at the clock mounted on the wall behind her desk. His family could never, ever, know about this. Heather would never forgive him and his daughters, well he had no idea what he would say to them.

"I'm really sorry about this."

He sank his hand into his blazer pocket and tried to think of something else. The plastic box was heavy in his hand, but he brought it out quickly.

Ellen saw the taser, and recognized it immediately as several guards carried similar devices, coming at her. Training that she had hoped she'd never need kicked in and she kicked her legs and sent her chair rolling back and away from the taser. She threw up her arm to deflect it. The self-defense lessons were useless, she'd never learned how to avoid an electric shock. She took the hit to the right side of her chest and it instantly paralyzed her. The pain was overpowering it was like being stabbed with fiery needle. Her muscles jerked and jolted and her stomach lurched. It felt like she was going to throw up, cry and scream all at the same time. She couldn't do anything, though, it hurt too much.

Oliver lowered her to the carpeted floor. "You don't understand, but I'm really sorry."

The woman blinked up at him, confused and in pain. He could see the muscle in her cheek and neck twitch under her skin. Though she looked nothing like any of his three girls, he couldn't help but think of his wife and children.

"You'll be safe here, I promise."

Oliver offered a weak smile to the woman's now closed eyelids. He felt like he was going to vomit. Oliver, Ollie to his friends, wasn't a violent man by nature, he reminded himself for the fifteenth time. He hadn't even spanked Tracy or Mina when they were little.

He _didn't_ have a choice.

He sat down in Ellen's chair and it squeaked in protest. It knew what he had done to it's usual sitter. His nervous laughter at that thought echoed in the small office. He sounded a little crazy.

Oliver opened his portfolio folder back up and slid the thin USB memory stick out of it's little pocket. He almost dropped it because his hands were shaking uncontrollably. Ellen's computer sat on the desk, humming away. She had a cute kitten screen-saver, he hit the mouse to make it go away. The desktop picture, Ellen with a young man in a cap and gown, was no better. He licked his lips again and made himself focus. The cords running out of the back of the tower hooked it to the prison's main server. He plugged the USB into the easy-access slot and watched the computer recognize the device, then opened the file. Windows made everything ridiculously easy.

He looked at his watch, it had been a gift from his wife, and licked his lips again. It was almost time.

* * *

Rodney Campbell grunted and threw his shoulder into pushing the heavy cart along the stacks. There were several hundred books in the prison's library and it felt like every single one of them were stacked in the cart. It wouldn't be so damn heavy if the other man on Library detail got off his ass and did something. The Library work detail was the single best and easiest detail you could pull. It had taken Rodney ten years to land the job. The lazy, spoiled, pretty boy sitting at the table had been given the detail on a silver platter six and a half years ago. Six and a half years and Rodney had _literally_ never seen him do anything. It had to be nice to have a rich daddy.

"Hey, Ro-Ro."

He blew a snort of air out of his nose, he _hated_ that name. It wasn't a big enough annoyance, though, to start an argument. Scottie Shelton was another pain in the ass. The man was perpetually "working on his appeal" so he got to spend plenty of time in the library. Scottie and Dudley-Do-Nothing often spent the entire shift running their mouths.

He looked up from the chest high shelf he'd been working on, "Yeah?"

Scottie leaned against one of the concrete pillars, "I'm bored. Do you have anything _good_? No faggy magicians or gay paintings or ass-spelunking cowboys, just something good to read, ya know. "

Rodney just looked at him.

"Fine, I'll just look myself." He shouldered by Rodney, and started to rifle through the cart. The guard at the door watched, but did nothing. No one would believe him if he said anything. A couple of pampered white boys picking on the two-hundred and eight-five pound black ex-d-line tackle? It sounded ridiculous even to him and he was living it.

He sighed, "What are you looking for?" He'd been in the library for enough years to find any book at any given time in his sleep.

Scottie finally pulled up an old, dog-eared hardback, _Edible Plants of the Mojave Desert_, "This'll work."

That was funny, Rodney thought as he shelved the next couple of books in the Ts, he had never figured Scottie as an outdoorsmen. Unless you counted the occasional softball game in the yard, which Rodney didn't. The man was pasty, balding and was, generally, a waste of space. Still, any man who liked to read couldn't be all bad.

"If you like that," He rambled off almost automatically, "I think I have a couple of desert hunting and trapping guides over on the shelf."

"I've never really been into hunting, Ro Ro, well, except," He flipped through the book' pages, "do you have a copy of _The Most Dangerous Game_?"

Rodney frowned, why did that sound familiar? "I don't thin-"

His voice went hoarse and then completely out, right in the middle of a syllable. Scott's movement was almost a blur and the crude hand-made knife was just sharp enough to be effective. Rodney looked down at his stomach. It was such a little piece of white plastic, he couldn't believe it hurt so much. He also realized that the knife had been hidden inside of the book. How had he missed _that_? The knife had been hidden inside one of his books. God, what kind of nightmare was this? It was such a little cut though, surely it wouldn't be too bad. Blood spurted out of his gut and coated his clothes, fingers, hands and forearms. Rodney looked over towards the desk, and hoped to see help coming. The Guard was gone and while the desk was occupied, Scott's best buddy was kicked back. His feet were propped up on the counter and he was casually reading a magazine.

Scott pulled his shiv up, tearing through clothe, skin and flesh, until it came out completely. The sudden gush of extra blood made Rodney crumple to his knees.

He realized, in a rush of nausea and horror, that he had been gutted.

Scott stood over him, knife in hand. "It's nothing personal, Ro Ro, it's just the Boss's orders."

He moved again, arm flying fast and sure, and Rodney's glasses flew off his face and hit the bottom of the bookshelf with a crack. The make-shift knife obliterated his left eye and stuck in the socket like a nail in a tire. Blood and fluid poured down Rodney's face like tears. He blinked his good eye, trying to bring the world back into focus. He wasn't exactly sure what had just happened or who was screaming.

The library that he knew so well was out of focus. The strait spines of the perfectly organized and alphabetized books around him began to merge into a blurry mass of shifting color. He half crawled, half rolled until his fever-hot and sticky with blood cheek touched the cool concrete wall. He collapsed against the wall and tried to call out for help. He could barely whisper. Blood was filling up his hands and dripping down to the floor despite his best efforts to hold it in his gut. His face hurt, his eye was gone and the entire room was spinning.

Death, Rodney decided, was a bad-ass trip. It felt like a potent mix of acid and absinthe. The pain, nausea and disorientation spun in his head like a red and black cyclone and rolled through his body like a bittersweet fog. Tears leaked out of his good eye and he was _afraid_. He didn't want to die alone. He didn't deserve that, no one deserved that.

He took his right hand off his stomach, not that it mattered, and reached up the wall. He knew the library better then any other man in Ely. He knew every inch of space and every book that was contained in it. He also knew exactly where the fire alarm was. His fingers, slick with blood, found the lever easily. His last act was to pull it down with all of his remaining strength. He didn't hear the shrill tone of the alarm. Instead he heard his own last breathe echo in his head. A mere minute later the sprinkler system came on, and showered the room and the entire prison with luke-warm water. The books in the library were ruined, but the man who had cared for them did nothing to protect them. The water sprayed down on Rodney Campbell's body, but the lifer was far beyond such small inconveniences as that.

* * *

Tyler Goodsong and Dustin Johnson had spent the morning patrolling the halls and had supervised breakfast. They rotated to the yard's watchtower at ten and were already more then ready for lunch.

Both men scanned for trouble, eyes constantly moving.

"So Jenna wants us to go to some couple's retreat with her church next weekend."

Dustin actually turned to look at his co-worker and best friend, "You're kidding."

"No," Tyler grumbled, "she's already packed-for both of us."

Dustin let out a curse, "But I got us tickets on the fifty-yard line! We'll practically be able to hear Sanford screaming at Omar Clayton! It's the BYU Game, man. The Rebels are going to stomp those Mormons into the turf."

It was September and the college season was still young, but Dustin and Tyler were already looking forward to rooting for the Rebels at a bowl game.

Tyler shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. Dustin was a great guy, his best friend, but he had become a little clingy since his marriage had hit the skids. Tyler's marriage was less then a year old and Jenna was quickly growing tired of sharing him with his friend. "I know, but it's important to her, you know. Besides she's still pretty pissed about what happened last month." He didn't have to clarify exactly what event he was talking to, Dustin knew he'd been way out of line.

"Ouch, okay so that was sort of my bad."

Puking all over their new deck and in the pristine pool had _definitely_ been Dustin's bad. The fact that he'd done so in front of Jenna's parents, sister, and pastor hadn't helped matters at all.

"So yeah, I think I'm going to go to this retreat thing. Maybe it'll get me back into her good graces in time for play-offs."

Whatever it was that Dustin was about to say never made t out of his lips. The alarms starting going off. Their reaction was fast and automatic, Tyler grabbed the tear gas cartridges and launcher from their racks on the tower wall and Dustin grabbed the walkie-talkie off of his heavy leather belt.

"This is Tower Two, what's going on? We don't have _anything_ in the yard." The only answer was static.

"What the hell is going on, is it another damn system check?" Tyler picked up the hardline phone and quickly slammed it down again, "I don't even have a dial tone."

Then bellow them, all hell broke loose. As soon as the alarm blared, men started attacking each other. It was like a bad action movie, all elbow jabs, dirty shots and guttural screams.

"Son of a bitch!"

Then there was the echoing blast of an automatic rifle. Tyler and Dustin looked at each other in disbelief. The guards in Tower 1 were firing their weapons, their live weapons, down into the yard. It was going to, literally, be a bloodbath. Dustin froze in place for a moment. Beside him Tyler fired one of the gas canisters down into the crowd.

"Dude."

Tyler loaded another canister, "Not now."

"Ty, look." Dustin tugged him around and Tyler followed his pointed finger.

"Holy shit!"

* * *

"Oh man!"

One of the boys, Daniel Cho didn't know his name, from the group waved him over. Five of them were crouched down behind one of the concrete benches. "Man, you're bleeding, man."

Daniel looked down at his orange jumpsuit and was surprised to see blood splattered across it. "It's not mine." He had never been so incredibly afraid in his entire life. "It's not my blood." He crouched down with the other boys, "It's not my mine." There was gas, people shooting, men beating each other, it was everywhere. The screams were the worst, this wasn't how it was in his hood. Hell, movies and video games didn't even get like _this_. This was fucking war, and he just wanted to go home.

Another boy, a black kid with cornrows and a scar across his cheek looked up, "Christ, look at that!"

Daniel couldn't even think about looking up and seeing more blood and dead people.

"Those are helicopters! Oh God, they're like here to rescue us!"

The black kid jumped up and started waving his arms, "WE'RE OVER HERE!"

Daniel didn't know what the helicopters, two of them, were doing. "Are you sure they're here for us?" Panic rose up in his throat, if the choppers started shooting, they were all dead.

"Holy crap is that Officer Inman?"

Daniel looked up, hoping against hope that it was the big burly adult. He almost cried tears of joy when he saw that it was.

The Parole Officer was half-carrying one of their group. Daniel knew him, they went to the same school. Kevin was a white boy who sold hard drugs out of his locker at South Vegas High. He was holding a white-gone-yellow tee-shirt to his bleeding side and looked as scared as Daniel felt.

Officer Inman eased Kevin onto the ground, "You kids stay down. We're gonna be alright, one of those 'copters is coming from the military base. They're gonna get this under control and we're all going to go home." He looked at the seven of them one by one and settled on Daniel, "Danny Boy, I need you to watch Kevin while I signal our location. Just keep pressure on his shirt here. He's bleeding pretty bad and needs your help." Daniel nodded numbly, and did as he was told. He didn't like Kevin, they ran with different crews. At school or on the street he would have punched him rather then say hello. Now he just didn't want the other boy to die. Please God, he didn't want him to die.

Daniel and the other boys crouched on the ground and watched their Parole Officer. The man stood up, and unbuttoned and tore off the black and olive vest that identified him as a corrections officer. Underneath that he'd was wearing a plain white polo shirt with sweat stains underneath the arms. The only jewelry he wore was a St. Christopher's medal and it gleamed in the sun like a beacon.

Daniel watched in awe as the man climbed up on top of the concrete table. Inman started to wave the clothe above his head, like a flag, in long flowing arcs. It would be impossible not to see the black against the dusty concrete, orange uniforms and red blood.

Daniel could clearly see the helicopters now, two of them, coming their way. Beside him, Kevin let out a shaky breathe, "We're going to be okay guys."

Daniel didn't move his hand away from the bloody tee-shirt, but he squinted at the approaching helicopters. They had to see Inman, _they just had to_. The copters came close enough for Daniel to feel the wump-wump-wump of the spinning blades reverberate in his chest. One was actually landing, and the other hovered far above and to the side of it. They were safe!

Two men ran to the first helicopter then it took off. The helicopter started rising up in the air and it just left them all there.

"NO!"

He wanted to stand up and scream at them, he wanted to run towards the copter, but he kept his hand firmly over Kevin's bloody shirt.

"They left us!"

Inman turned, "There's another one, they're coming for us, boys. Don't worry, we'll get out of this."

He was right, Daniel assured himself. Of course the other copter was for them.

Another round of the seemingly endless gunfire started and they all ducked behind the table. The shots were close. Bits of concrete cut them as it flew around them. Daniel heard the groan and the thump and smelled the blood. Tears rose up in his eyes and he pressed on Kevin's shirt even harder. It didn't matter, Inman was dead, he just knew the man was dead, and they were all going to join him very soon.

He wanted to go home, he wanted his mom, but most of all he didn't want to die.

* * *

The orange-suited man all but leapt into her helicopter. Despite his clumsy and dangerous jump into the cabin, Paula Richards sat in the pilot's seat, cool and collected, "Are you Scott Shelton?" She hoped he wasn't, because if the blood on his clothes were any indication the man was dying or had killed recently.

The blood-smeared man nodded, and looked over his shoulder at the mess he'd just fought through. "That's me, now let's get out of here, Lady." A quick string of gunshots punctuated his statement.

She scowled behind her tinted glasses, no one had said anything about gunshots. "We're waiting for one more." She and her partner, who had already landed and picked up his package, were maintaining radio silence for this operation but her hand still drifted towards the radio microphone. She didn't like waiting in a war zone.

"Listen, Doll," She turned her head to look at her passenger. "We don't have to wait. We can take your cut from this and get out of here. Just take off and we will head south to freaking Tijuana. Just take off and get us the hell out of here!"

"Strap in!" She never left a man behind, never.

Off to the left there was a knot of men fighting the guards and each other. They were striking anything they could reach as hard as they could with whatever they could lay their hands on. It was a bad situation, and the brawlers were yet another complication that had suddenly cropped up during this supposedly easy job. There had to be fifty men trying to kill each other and they were less then one hundred yards from her craft and person. She didn't like that at all. She was surprised that they hadn't rushed the heli yet. Still, Matt had made his run with no problem. She had only been on the ground for ninety seconds and planned to lift off and ninety more.

"Come on!"

Paula bit her dry bottom lip and eyed the wild mob that was coming far too close to them. She had learned a long time ago to never underestimate the power of mob violence. She dropped her right hand to the Desert Eagle strapped to her thigh. The large gun had been a gift from a friend and had gotten her out of several sticky situations. It was perpetually locked, loaded and ready for action. Action was coming closer and closer to her so she popped the strap on her holster.

Where was her other pick-up? She had been told he'd been dressed in civvies. How the hell she wasn't able to see a business suit in an ocean of orange was beyond her. He had one more minute before she left him. She gripped the stick hard and pushed the guilt down. He wasn't a prisoner, apparently, and they would sort it all out later. If she kept waiting the whole thing would be blown and then where would this grandiose plan be?

"Um, Lady we got problems, like twenty or thirty of them running at us. GET US IN THE AIR, BITCH!" She snapped her head around and felt her stomach plummet. The mob had switched its attention to her heli.

She froze for a minute, not sure what country and continent she was on.

"HEY!"

She drew her pistol with a rock-steady hand and fired twice, at the closest cons, and knew she'd killed them without looking. The twin explosions of gunfire sounded over the thunder of the turning rotors and she rested the gun on her lap. She wasn't sure she wouldn't need it again. The air smelled of cordite, sweat and hydraulic fluid.

Her other rider was out of time, and out of luck.

"Hold on!"

The man she had picked up didn't waste time, "Gladly!"

The helicopter was a civilian make, a rental used mostly for Grand Canyon tours, and was more nimble then what she was used to. The controls responded to her slightest twitch.

"Lets go!" Scott's voice cracked like a terrified teenage boy. "Get us out of here!"

They were going up, but she had to take her time because of the nearby buildings and fences.

"They're not fucking happy out there!"

That much, Paula fumed, was obvious. The shots had further enraged the mob and they were trying to get onto the helicopter by grabbing onto the skids. It was throwing the small craft's balance off. A bead of sweat slid down her temple underneath the flight helmet. She had to stabilize the craft before going any higher. They were locked in a shaky hover at about ten feet off the ground and the mob didn't want to let them go. They were climbing on top of each other to reach the heli. It wasn't looking good.

Now she was officially nervous. Paula clenched her jaw and started to pull up further. She had to shake off the extra weight or they would _never_ get out. She thought about her gun, but even if she fired the entire clip and killed with every shot she doubted it would be enough. She needed altitude more then bullets.

The heli started to rise again, smooth and fast, and for a moment she thought they were in the clear. Then the craft dipped right, and she knew that they still had company. The heli shook and shuddered and she had to fight the stick to keep them airborne.

There were a least five men trying to hitch a ride and the craft was only built for one pilot and three passengers. She had to shake them or they were going down, hard. Men clinging to a 'copter's undercarriage worked wonderfully in movies, but in real-life it was putting them all in very serious danger. They were only thirty-five feet in the air, and she couldn't get them any higher without crashing.

"We've got company!"

She looked over her shoulder and watched two hands-worth of fingers appear on the cabin's deck

"Give me your gun or something!"

She would have handed it to him, but she _needed_ both hands on the stick. She didn't even have time to tell him that, though. Fingers lead to hands and in seconds there was another person inside the craft, a crazed prisoner with what looked like a homemade knife in his hand.

"Take care of him!" Her voice tore out of her throat and it sounded as desperate as she felt. They were only one error from spinning out of control and dying.

She couldn't look behind to see what was happening, but the motion transferred well enough to have the craft bobbing and weaving in the air. She didn't have control, it was all she could do to keep them a few feet above a fiery death.

The two men hit the back of her seat and she was thrown forward against her harness. The nose tilted down dangerously and the tail swung hard and fast to the left. She pulled the craft into a barely controlled one-hundred and eighty degree turn and winced when she heard the copter's metal skin scrape against the razor wire fence.

"Jesus, stop it you're going to kill us all!"

This lightweight craft wasn't built for so much cabin movement and it definitely wasn't up for a brawl. It was a miracle, and her skills, that they were still in the air. Her heart hammered hard against her chest and her blood roared in her ears, her hands tingled from the pressure of her grip.

When she had them somewhat stable again she grabbed the gun off of her lap, "SIT DOWN!"

The bastard lunged at her, his eyes wide and shining with crazed bloodlust. Battle-craze, she had seen it before and instantly knew she was dead. She squeezed the trigger but it wasn't fast enough to prevent the two-hundred pound man from tackling her. She registered the hit and the sharp pain in her neck at almost the exact time. Scott pulled him off, but the damage was done. Bright red arterial blood spurted out of her throat and coated the cabin, the windshield and Scott himself. She clasped her free hand to her throat to stop the bleeding, but knew it was a futile effort. Her vision was already fading to gray and her fingers were slipping off the stick.

Her gun hit the deck with the heavy clunk of metal on metal. She could hear the distant sound of someone praying and felt like laughing. Praying wasn't about to save their asses now.

Time slowed down and she could feel the 'copter buck and start to spin and roll. She didn't have enough strength left in her hand to grip the controls. She could see the ground rushing up to meet them through the blood spattered windshield and her narrowing vision.

The last thing she saw was a man running across the dusty concrete in a business suit waving his arms.

* * *

Reed Callahan was being pulled through the riot by the arm by a man he barely knew. It was like he'd walked into a scene from Grand Theft Auto or Halo. Guys were duking it out _everywhere_. The mess-hall had been crazy and all he'd been doing was trying to hide. The man who'd found him under one of the bolted down tables hadn't threatened him, but had told him that they were "getting out of here". That had been enough for Reed. No one had been brave or stupid enough to mess with Trevino. The man had a reputation that was above reproach. Reed had heard that the Mexican Mafia, one of the most powerful forces in Ely, feared him. You didn't tell someone like that no and live. Reed wanted to live, he really really wanted to live.

"Where are we going?!" Reed had to scream because the hallways were full of noise: the alarms going off, the grunts, growls and grumbles of packs of men fighting, and the rush of water hitting concrete. The sprinklers were going and had drenched everything. The concrete floors were shower-slick and prison-issued shoes didn't have much in the way of grip. He was in a constant state of almost falling over his own feet.

"You'll know when we get there."

It suddenly dawned on him, Trevino wasn't talking about getting out of the wing or even the prison building, he was talking about escaping. Well that was just in-freaking-sane.

"You mean, are you talking about escaping?! That's a felony!" The minute it spilled out of his mouth he knew exactly how stupid it sounded.

Trevino stopped dead in his tracks, one leg planted on each side of a man whose throat had been sliced. He glared at Reed, his black eyes sharp, sober and serious. "You have debts, and if you follow me they will be erased or you can stay here and end up-"He looked down at the dead man that he was all but standing on, "like him."

Reed didn't have a choice, he had to go on.

The path to the exercise yard was surprisingly empty compared to the main corridors and the cafeteria. It was over, the worst was over. Reed let out a breathe and the big man felt a little better about everything. Then they stepped outside.

It was Hell, it had to be Hell. He stood in the doorway and watched a helicopter, a real live helicopter, crash into the ground and one of the guard towers. The explosion was bright orange and yellow and the heat it threw off hit his body like a shockwave. Metal chunks flew all across the yard and one man was unfortunate enough to be caught in the chopper's large spinning blades. He was torn apart and the blood hit the crumbling concrete and block that was a quickly disintegrating guard tower with a loud splatter. There were screams and moans and the air smelled of gasoline and what had to be burning flesh.

He was going to throw up.

"Oh God, there were people in there, there were people!"

If Trevino heard him, he didn't seem to care.

Convicts ran towards the fence and for a second Reed thought that they were going to help whoever was trapped in the chopper wreckage. They hit the fence in force and it fell in a clatter that Reed only barely heard over the violent fire.

"We go."

Some men, only a few, were running strait into the desert, others were headed towards the parking lots to steal cars, and Reed heard one man screaming about the bus. They were actually escaping. Escaping from prison, it was just like a movie. He was in a movie, a real life movie. Oh God.

He didn't belong here! He looked around, and tried to stop the panic attack he could feel coming on. The part of the fence closest to the asphalt parking lot was still standing, mostly. Trevino slid through torn section and looked at Reed. He was much heavier then Trevino and eyed the gap warily. Trevino said nothing, he just glared. Reed understood why the Mexican Mafia feared the man, he was terrifying. He turned sideways and started to push himself through the chain link fence's gap. The metal cut his arms and tore at his body and legs through the orange fabric of his jumpsuit. He was shocked that he fit through the gap at all, he wasn't exactly a lightweight. Not that he had time to celebrate the achievement since he was escaping from prison and all. The worst had to be over, though, they were in the parking lot, after all.

One of the other guys who had slipped through the gap in the fence looked over at him with a big smile on his face. "It's just like TV, huh Fatty?"

Reed smiled a little. Fatty was practically a compliment compared to most of the names that he'd been called lately. "Yeah, I guess it is."

The other man, wasn't his name something like John or Jack something that definitely started with a J, laughed as they jogged towards the full parking lot. "Next stop Vegas, Fatty. I'm gonna hit a liquor store, grab a whore and buy some ice and spend the next year drinkin', smokin', and fu-"

John or Jack or Josh's chest exploded in a spray of red. It hit the side of Reed's face with a spray of gore. His ears buzzed with white noise and he wiped the blood off his cheek with his fingers. It was warm, thick, and on his hands. He should have been horrified, but he felt incredibly numb. He had another man's blood on him. He had a dead man's blood on his _face_.

"Get down!"

The voice, Trevino's, snapped him out of his momentary shock. Reed dropped to his knees and covered his head and neck with his arms like he' practiced so very many times in grammar school. Gunshots, he could hear them again, echoed through the parking lot. What was worse? He could hear bullets hitting metal and pavement. No, they weren't hitting, they cut through steel and concrete like it was nothing.

"Holy crap-" He looked up momentarily, "they're shooting at _us_!"

Trevino was just ahead of him, crawling on his belly like a soldier. That, Reed realized, was a far better strategy then simply ducking and covering. It was what they did in movies, after all. Watching it and doing it, Reed found, were two different things. Especially, he groaned, if you were three hundred pounds. Everything was easier for skinny people. It wasn't easy, but he pulled himself with his arms and scooted with his legs. He was moving at a snail's pace across the bubbling hot asphalt of the pitted and cracked parking lot, but he was moving.

After what seemed like hours, the gunshots tapered off and became more erratic and spaced out. Maybe they had run out of bullets, or given up, or both. He didn't care why, he was just happy to get off of his belly.

"Well now we know what bacon feels like, but I never actually wanted to know. You know what's half funny, it's like when we were kids and they would flash-fry an egg on the sidewa-"

Trevino stared at him, sweat pouting down his face. "If you say one more word I will cut your tongue out." That was when Reed noticed that the other man was bleeding.

"You're shot!"

Trevino glared at him, "One more fucking word."

Reed closed his mouth so quickly his teeth clicked together with a snap.

Trevino opened the door of a blue car and eased into the driver's seat.

Reed's eyes went wide, it was visiting day, and they couldn't just steal someone's car! There were women and kids inside. He glanced at Trevino, but decided that his words would fall on deaf ears, and then he would get his tongue cut out. He really liked his tongue. He stayed quiet and got into the passenger side seat.

Trevino started the car with the keys that someone had left in the switch.

Who would be dumb enough to leave their car unlocked with the keys in it in a prison parking lot? It was the craziest thing he'd ever heard of. Then Reed looked back, as they were driving away from the compound at sixty miles an hour, and saw the devastation. The wall was in ruins, a pillar of black smoke stood out against the beige building and the blue sky. Okay, maybe it wasn't the craziest thing he'd seen.

Cold air poured out of the vents and Reed instantly perked up, "Hey, air-conditioning, sweet!"

Beside him, Trevino rolled his eyes, and wished he had picked someone else as an accomplice. Especially since he'd been shot. He continued to bite down on the inside of his cheek, unwilling to show weakness. He would have to find a doctor as soon as he could. The bullet was still in his side and blood was pouring from the wound.

It was not the worst injury he'd ever had, but it was nothing to ignore.

"Do you think I could listen to the radio?"

If he survived this, he was going to make sure the idiot beside him did not.


	3. Chapter II: Soak Up The Sun

Author's Note: Okay, so maybe there won't be a weekly update…yet. I'm working on it. Also, this chapter's title was borrowed from the Sheryl Crow song of the same name.

*cough* Reviews are encouraging *cough*

_Chapter II_

_Soak up the Sun_

It was a perfect day and there wasn't anywhere she would rather be then Lake Meade. They had a cooler full of soda, water, good beer, thick cold cut sandwiches and cupcakes. She tapped her bare foot to the music that blared out of the old portable stereo and smiled at the dog perched on the boat's bouncing bow. Riley barked at the passing jet-skiers, the birds above them, the splashing wake and anything else that caught his attention. Riley, like Greg, hadn't been on her original invite list. They had been so pathetic, though, when she'd stopped at Sara's apartment, she hadn't been able to say no. She was, Sofia laughed at herself, absolutely spineless when it came to animals and Greg had cheerfully invited himself along.

Sara brushed by her and bent down by her dog to lavish attention on her wet, shaggy dog. Okay, Sofia could admit it, maybe it wasn't just the dog that she had a soft spot for.

Behind them Greg was having more fun than Riley, which was saying something. The CSI was holding on to the tube for dear life and he loved every second of it if his girlishly high screams were any indication.

"I am the King of Lake Meade!" Greg had boasted when he'd put on the lifejacket, "And there's no way you can throw me, Curtis."

She was going to make Sanders eat those words and wash them down with plenty of water. His ride was going to end with him hitting the lake, hard. That was a matter of fact, inevitable and unavoidable. The boy was going to end up dripping wet. It was a matter of pride, because if there was any royalty on the lake, it was her. She wasn't just the Queen of the lake, she was the Empress.

"You've got a cruel streak in you." Sara stood up beside her, "You're going to send him skipping across the water like a stone if you keep it up."

Sofia grinned and pushed her aviator sunglasses back up her nose, "That's the idea."

Sara tilted her head back and laughed so hard that Riley abandoned his post at the front of the boat to investigate. Her usually pristine boat was full of life and laughter and dog, and Sofia couldn't imagine why they hadn't done this before.

"It's too bad Warrick couldn't make it."

Sofia looked over her shoulder, "Yeah—Oh, Greg's down!"

He didn't exactly skip across the water, but he did an impressive half-flip in the air before landing hard on his stomach. His sudden introduction to the physics of man versus lake gave Sofia a perfect opportunity to not talk about Warrick Brown, and she took it. The man's behavior and suspension was something of a sore spot between them. Sara and Greg were, obviously, on his side but Sofia was slightly less supportive of his erratic behavior. It was something they had to agree to disagree the subject. Talking about it now would only spoil the day. She eased the fish-and-ski boat into a wide, lazy one-hundred and eighty degree arc and headed back to pick up Greg. The tube he had just been thrown from skipped across the water behind them.

When they were close enough for Greg to swim in, Sofia cut the engine and the boat slowed to a stop. Sofia popped the lid of the cooler while the thoroughly schooled and dripping wet criminalist climbed back into the boat.

"Seriously, Sofia."

She looked up, her hand still in ice up to the wrist.

Greg shrugged out of the wet life vest and scrubbed his hand through his short hair. "You named your boat the _C. Auguste Dupin_? Really? You are such a nerd, why didn't you just name it the Mystery Yacht and be done with it."

Sara pushed her dark Ray Bans down her nose, "Do you really want to swim back to the marina, Greggo?"

Sofia smirked and rummaged in the cooler for a drink while Sara and Greg bickered. Sara was smiling, something she hadn't been doing much of lately. She wasn't taking her suspension well. Sara was dedicated to her job, a self-admitted workaholic, and she didn't know what to do with the sudden abundance of free time. Not that Sara didn't deserve a vacation after the year she'd had.

A yelp caught her attention and Sofia belatedly realized that she'd left her hand in the cooler's icy water.

"Sofia, tell her she has to!"

She pulled a cold bottle of beer out of the cooler and shut the lid, "What?"

Greg had Sara pinned to one of the seats by sitting on her. "She has to ride the tube, it's _so_ her turn."

Beneath him, still trying to wiggle her way out from beneath Greg, Sara shook her head, "I'm fine, well I will be when this idiot gets off of me!"

Greg smiled, "It'll be fun. Oh or Sofia could go and _I_ could take a turn at the wheel!"

Sofia popped the cap off of the light beer and took a long drag, "You must have hit your head on something out there if you think I'm going to leave you in charge of my boat _and_ my safety."

Even pinned down such as she was, Sara laughed.

Greg stood up, "That's cold, Curtis."

She grinned and picked up the life jacket that Greg had left on the deck, "He's right, though, it is your turn, Sar."

The brunette opened her mouth to argue, but shut it without saying a word.

"Alright, Sidle, drop your pants and let's get this show on the road."

Sara grinned and quirked an eyebrow and Greg practically swooned.

Sara unfastened her old, faded blue jean cut offs and they slid down her long legs. Sofia admired, and Greg practically drooled over, the exposed expanse of skin. Of course, Sofia mused, she wasn't showing that much skin. Sara's black one piece was modest bordering on prudish.

Sofia held out the life jacket and Sara wrinkled her nose at it. "I hate life jackets. I don't need it. I practically grew up in the ocean; I can swim like a fish."

Sofia didn't waver, "I don't care if you are _part_ fish, you're not going out there without this." It was a rock-solid rule and she wouldn't break it, not even for Sara.

"Fine." Sara all but snatched the vest out of her hand and shrugged into it. "Stupid rule."

Sofia stepped closer, into her personal space, and plucked the sunglasses off of the other woman's face. "_Relax_, all you have to do is hold on and leave the rest to me." She leaned closer and jerked the vest's zipper up. They were closer together then they had allowed themselves to be since it became clear that there was _something_ happening between them. The two of them, and the moment they'd found themselves in, slowed down and almost stopped still. The hot sun beat down on their heads and the cool breeze ruffled their hair and for a handful of heartbeats neither woman breathed. Blood thumped in Sofia's temples and pulsed in her lips and she thought about doing something stupid. Sofia really _thought_ about throwing caution to the wind and kissing the brunette. She would bet that Sara was ready to investigate the bubbling, shiny little _something_ between them too.

"C'mon, Sara, I bet you won't last half as long as I did!"

The moment shattered like cheap glass and they both took a fast step backwards. Sofia almost tripped over Riley and tried to cover her awkwardness up by petting him.

"It's not a competition, it's about having fun." She followed Sara to the back of the boat and started to pull the tube in. Her body practically vibrated and her blue tankini seemed far too tight for comfort. The nylon rope rasped through her hands and the float bounced towards them quickly.

"You do know that it really is a competition, right."

Sofia grinned, "Of course, and I fully intend to school you both."

The black and yellow tube bumped against the white fiberglass back stern of the boat and she watched Sara climb onto it. "Should I be afraid?"

Sofia quirked a brow, "Of me?"

Sara started to paddle backwards, pushing the tube back away from the boat, "Well last time you were at a school you were_ banned_ from the library."

* * *

The jab about the library was below the belt, but worth it. Sofia's eyebrows winged up and she laughed. It was a nice picture to keep in her head, especially since she was about to be treated to flying lessons. Sara grinned, she was really glad she had decided to come with Sofia and Greg.

Ahead of her the boat, the C. Auguste Dupin, started to move. It was an interesting name for a boat, but it fit Sofia to a tee. She was a literature nerd hiding behind a detective's shield. The tow rope started to unfurl, uncurl, and the slack quickly disappeared. The plastic and canvas covered tube started to move. It was slow at first, the water pounded at the float's bottom and it hurt. Sara lifted her scantily-clad self off of the bottom and readjusted her grip on the plastic handles. The water, only a scant few inches bellow her, tuned into green glass and white froth quicker then she thought it would. Sofia was going to get her for that remark; she tightened her grip again.

The boat's "V" of wake could be separated into three parts: the large line of wake from the motor in the middle, the two dips on each side of that and the two long legs of the "V" made of high, rough water flowing off of the sides of the boat. The speed picked up and the wind started to beat at her body, it was exhilarating. Her existence became suddenly and solely focused on one thing, staying on the float. She smiled and squinted her eyes against the bright sun. Drops of water flew up and glimmered like diamonds in the air and were icy cold against her overheated skin. Ahead of her the boat banked hard to the right and she braced herself. The tube slid across the water and she tried to shift her weight along with the tube's movement. She flew across the white and green water quickly and the turn was so sharp that she flew out of the wake's v and out onto the glassy water of the lake. She was almost directly across from the boat. Greg actually waved and Sofia sent her an air kiss, then she banked the boat hard to the left.

"Oh shi-"The rush of water and roar of the boat's motor swallowed her curse and she braced for the slingshot movement of the raft. She was amazed that she held on all the way through the sharp turn. Her brain slowly caught up with her body and she realized, with a sudden jolt of adrenaline that they had actually circled back around and were about to cut through their own wake.

Sofia was a sadist was all she could think, and then the raft went airborne. She landed back on the water, and still, miraculously, on the float with a bone-jarring crash and was immediately whipped into another hair-pin turn. The chop was rough and she hadn't thought it was possible, but they were going even faster then before.

The tube veered hard to the left again and the tube jerked up and in the scant few seconds before it happened she knew she was about to fly. She fell, practically cart wheeled, into the water and the impact stole her breathe. The water closed over her and lake water rushed into her wide-open mouth and up her nose. Her tongue, throat, nasal passages and sinus cavities were instantly coated with the brackish taste of sea water. The brine of the ocean she'd grown up in the middle of a freshwater lake. Beams of sunlight cut into the water and for a moment she was weightless in a place where up and down were inconsequential and time held no meaning. Memories flashed in her mind's eye like a chaotic slide show and a small kernel of panic blossomed up in her chest. The life vest did it's job, despite her disorientation, and rocketed her back towards the surface.

Her head broke through the water and she took a deep, greedy breath of fresh air. The taste of salt disappeared as quickly as it had come. She pushed her dark, wet hair out of her eyes and slicked it back against her scalp. Several hundred yards away the boat was halfway through its turn. They were headed back to pick her up. No matter what she said, Sofia was going next, because she had to get some payback. Sofia might have proclaimed herself King, or Queen actually, of the Lake, but there was going to be a quick and wet revolution today.

The Dupin slowed to a stop a few yards away and she swam towards it. Her free-style stroke was even, strong and steady, though it had never been fast enough to be considered great, and she made short work of the distance. Sara pulled herself up the ladder, and paused halfway up to unzip the now cumbersome life vest. "Okay guys that-"

Then she noticed their cell phones against their ears. Reception, she knew, was spotty on Lake Meade, but they had apparently stopped in one of the spots where the satellites lined up and the wind blew right. There was at least one bar here and, of course, Greg and Sofia were being called in.

A slender cirrus cloud moved across the sun and Sara felt it's thin shadow fell across her spirit like a full eclipse. Her smile faltered a little before she could recover. Sofia and Greg were being called into work but her cell phone was still and silent. Two sets of eyes, both apologetic, met hers and she looked away. It wasn't their fault that they were being called in. That was the nature of their job. Crime happened and they had to go and clean it up. She just didn't like being the one who got left behind. She knew how the wives, husbands and dates felt like. It wasn't a fun feeling.

Greg hung closed his phone first and turned a full force puppy dog eyes on her. Sofia closed her phone and heaved a sigh.

Sara ran her hand over her wet hair again, and pushed Riley's nose away from her crotch, "So how bad is it, guys?"

Greg's tan was actually turning ashen, "It's _bad_."


	4. Chapter III: Fired

Author's Note: Yeah, there's been an unexpected delay with the story. Read: I've got the worst case of writer's block I've had in years. I'm still not completely happy with this chapter, unlike the previous one, has not been beta read. Thanks to John Smith for beta reading Chapter II. So this is Chapter III, and it might be a while before Chapter IV is posted due to the fact that my brain is rebelling against me.

Feedback is always super-appreciated and very encouraging!

_Chapter III_

_Fired_

The pickup truck he had taken from Ely's parking lot was a piece of shit. He wasn't going to bitch too much, though, the truck had gone further then he'd originally thought it would. The pile of junk hadn't looked like it would get past Pioche, but it had made it all the way to the city. Now he needed to do was stay under the radar and away from attention and he would be fine. James Leroy tugged at the collar of the cover-alls he'd found stuffed behind the truck's passenger seat. They smelled of motor oil, gasoline and another man's sweat. The name stitched on the front pocket was Robert and he, whoever he was, was about two sizes smaller then James.

God, he needed to change clothes, these were way too fucking small and it wasn't like he could put his prison orange back on. He was stuck until he found some cash. Robert had left his truck unlocked with the spare key in the center console, but had taken his wallet into the prison with him. James hadn't even been able to find three quarters.

Fuck Robert.

He had found some cigarettes: cheap unfiltered Camels that burnt his throat and an equally cheap plastic Bic that might have been blue once. The grease stains made it hard to tell and the heat combined with his uncomfortably tight jumpsuit made it hard to give a damn.

He flicked his calloused thumb across the metal wheel and smiled when a small flame leapt up. He kept the light burning until the small lighter was too hot to hold onto anymore. James _liked_ fire.

The rest of the truck was a waste. There were a few tools in it's rusty bed, but they were used, abused and cheap. Even the roughest pawn shop in town would laugh at him. He was flat broke, wearing another man's clothes and the cops would be breathing down his neck any time. Christ, it almost wasn't worth it. Almost. He squinted up at the sun through the dusty windshield and glanced at the Robert's discarded wristwatch, he'd been out for almost seven hours.

Seven hours of driving from the shit stain called Ely to get to a shitty part of North Las Vegas. He had taken every pig trail and dust-choked back road and had cut through both Utah and Arizona to avoid the cops, and he'd still had a damn close call with a state trooper on the outskirts of St George. He probably should have kept heading east, towards Oklahoma City, Phoenix or even south to Mexico. He would head that way, eventually. He just needed to grab a couple of things from home. Home was where you kept your shit, so at the moment James's home was in Vegas. He had a few things squirreled away in a buddy's garage that he could definitely use.

Lenny wouldn't mind loaning a shirt and a shower either. He just had to get over in Winchester, which meant allot of walking down very busy streets. James ran his hand over his burred blonde hair. He wasn't a genius, but he knew walking wasn't exactly a great idea. He drummed his hands on the steering wheel and tried to think of a good plan.

He watched, easily distracted from his unproductive plotting, a sedan pull up and parallel park in the spot right in front of his own. The driver was an old woman on a cell phone, the car was a late model Honda. James looked at the pipe wrench lying on the truck's passenger seat. It would be too easy.

* * *

Nancy Sherman shut her cell phone and scowled at it for a minute. Her son's car had been repossessed, a by-product of his divorce battle. Dana, the succubus he'd married, had stopped payment on all of the checks he'd written over the past month, including the one for his Corvette. They had repossessed it at the lawyer's office for God's sake.

She'd wished she'd never introduced Andrew to the woman. She also wished he'd have taken her advice and hired her attorney, George Howard, instead of the hotshot the television commercials and billboards raved about. At least she knew where George's office was. Caperelli and Associates was proving harder to find then Andrew had made it out to be. She'd already had to call him twice for directions. This time she had pulled off onto a side street, parked, and written the directions out. She was going to find the place and then Andy would drive them home. She hated driving in the city around rush hour.

A tap at her window made her jerk and she looked up from her recently written directions. She pushed her steel gray hair off of her forehead and looked at the young man outside her window. He was some sort of mechanic, she didn't know him. She hit the door lock-button with her elbow. Outside of the glass he pantomimed holding a telephone to his ear with his thumb and pinky finger and then pointed to the ramshackle truck parked behind her car.

Ah, she realized, he just needed to borrow her cell phone.

Then the shattered safety glass of what used to be her driver's side window hit her face.

* * *

Warrick loosened his tie as soon as his feet touched the sidewalk outside of his lawyer's office.

God, he hated lawyers. He hated paying so much money for one even more. Marrying Tina had cost him three hundred dollars: sixty for the paper work, forty for the drive through ceremony and another two hundred dollars for the rings. Divorcing the woman was going to cost him _fifteen hundred_ dollars. Thank God Nevada was a no-fault state or it would have cost him at least twice as much.

He took off his jacket, a garment usually reserved for court appearances and funerals, and threw it over his shoulder. As much as he wanted the whole thing to be over, he was still curious. If Tina's baby was his, that meant he was going to be a father. A father, him. Warrick shook his head, it was surreal. Tina wanted to wait until the baby was born to get the DNA work-up. On the one hand, that was another reason to drag the proceedings on and on and on. On the other, Warrick had to admit, it was safer to wait. Amniotic fluid testing could be dangerous to the baby and as a medical professional Tina knew the statistics and didn't want to risk it. He would wait, it was all he could do.

"Dana they repossessed my car. My car, Dana!" A harried man paced the small parking lot beside the lawyer's office, he was practically screaming at his Blackberry. "My mother has to come pick me up. My _mother, _Dana, do you know how humiliating that is? What do you think pulling this crap is going to get you the house? Well I've got something to tell you…"

Warrick tuned out the man and got into his own car. The restored muscle car roared to life around him, effectively drowning out the soon-to-be-divorced man, and he peeled out of the parking lot. That argument had sounded far too familiar for comfort. Why was it so damn easy for love to turn into hate? It didn't matter, he didn't even want to think about his own problems. He really didn't want someone else's worries on his shoulders right now.

It took less then three blocks for him to eat his words.

He saw the smoke first, it was pitch black and smelled of gasoline. Though he was suspended, he couldn't ignore such an obvious sign of trouble. Warrick felt the jolt of adrenaline hit him and he jerked his tie off and threw it in the passenger seat with one hand and hit the red button to turn his car's emergency flashers on. Even if he wasn't in a department vehicle, the drivers around him let him pass.

The fire was on a side street and it had almost fully engulfed the vehicle. It was a work truck: old, dirty and it had the flotsam of a blue collar laborer in back. The fire had originated in the back, near the bed, and was moving forward towards the cab and engine. It was an obvious arson. Someone had probably hotwired the truck and was now destroying the evidence of grand theft auto. It was probably one punk giving another punk the middle finger.

Warrick got out of his car, phone already in hand. This was the most action he'd seen since he'd been suspended. He scrolled through his phone contact list as he walked, dispatch needed to get a fire crew and an officer attached to the auto theft unit. They could run the VIN number and inform the owner, though Warrick didn't think the case would go anywhere, there were too many auto crimes and too little time to solve a case that was little more then malicious mischief.

He stopped still when he saw the woman in the cab. There was a person inside of the truck! He dropped his phone, dispatch forgotten and started to run. His slick soled dress shoes scuffed the asphalt and he slid to a less then graceful stop about three yards in front of the flaming pickup truck.

The woman inside, he realized, wasn't moving. The fire was incredibly hot; he had to put his arm up in front of his face to stand it. Despite being several feet away, he could smell his hair singing.

"Ma'am!"

He only had seconds to get the woman free. The fire, a viscous and fast moving red, yellow and orange monster, was moving towards her fast. If he didn't get her out now, she would be trapped and would die a painful death. He couldn't let her die-not again.

"Ma'am!"

He grabbed the driver's side door handle and pulled it three times. The metal was hot enough to blister his fingers and he cursed. The door was locked. He put his elbow through the window without a second thought. Glass fell inside of the truck and hit the woman. The rush of fresh air hit the fire inside and it roared with renewed life. Warrick reached inside and searched the door's inside panel for the internal handle. It was like shoving his arm, in a live oven, an oven fueled by gasoline. Shards of glass cut through his shirt and scrapped his skin and the fire crept closer to the unconscious woman and him.

His fingers finally fumbled onto the lever and he pulled it. The click told him that the door was open and he wrenched it open as quickly as he could. The number one priority was getting the woman out and away from the fire. He didn't even flinch when the flames licked at his arms and hands.

There was no time to lose and Warrick knew it. He'd seen enough vehicle fires to know that an explosion, while not guaranteed, was very possible. He gingerly lifted the woman into a firemen's carry across his shoulders and moved away from the truck as quickly as he could. He gagged when the smell of her burnt and blistered flesh hit him.

Warrick could hear sirens and hoped that they were headed their way. When they were a safe distance away, a few yards from where he'd left his car, he laid the woman down on the cement. Though he doubted she could hear him, he began to speak.

"My name is Warrick Brown and I'm with the Police. I need you to answer me if you can hear me." He took her left, and relatively whole and unburnt, hand in his own. "Or squeeze my hand if you can't talk."

She squeezed his hand, but he wasn't sure if it was because she could hear him or from pure reflex.

"You're going to be okay, help is on the way."

Her chest, a mess of charred and melted clothing and charbroiled flesh, moved up and down but only barely. There was more burnt than healthy flesh and when he gently turned his head he knew she was going to die. The back of her skull was a pulpy mess of singed hair, sticky blood, chips of white skull bone and decimated brain matter. She was probably only alive enough to feel the pain.

Son of a bitch. His eyes, irritated from the smoke, teared up. Son of a bitch.

The sirens, complete with the blue lights of two LVPD cars and the red of both a fire-truck and an ambulance arrived less then four minutes later.

Though he still held the woman's hand, they were three minutes too late to do anything for her.

Warrick recognized one of the responding officers. Kevin Thomas was a good patrol officer who was on the fast track to being a sergeant. He had a good head on his shoulders and he didn't scare easily. He also had shit luck when it came to locker-room betting.

"Paramedics are here, Brown."

Though he'd folded the unnamed woman's hands across her stomach, he hadn't bothered to stand up. He was still sitting on the pavement; he looked up at Thomas. "She doesn't need them anymore." His voice was raspy from the smoke and the bitter tears he was forcing back down his throat.

"They're not for her; they're here for you, man."

Warrick blew out a breath, "I'm fine."

Thomas shifted from foot to foot before kneeling down beside him. "Those look like pretty serious burns on your arms. Just let them check you out, if you don't want to go to the hospital that's fine."

Warrick just grunted and took Kevin's offered hand to help him up.

"You'll have to stay and wait for the Detectives to take your statement, and the coroner might have some questions for you too."

Warrick nodded, he had known that, "Have you taped off the area? We'll need to process this entire street for trace evidence and photograph the truck from several angles before we transport it to the garage to process it." He looked over his shoulder and winced at the several thousands of gallons of water that were being pumped on and into the truck. If the fire hadn't destroyed the evidence, the water was going to wash it away.

"The good news is that I removed the woma-victim before her body was completely destroyed. There might be some evidence we can salvage, and my clothes will have to be taken as evidence, of course."

Officer Thomas looked very uncomfortable. "Yeah, we've already called for a CSI." He paused and looked away. "I'm going to have to ask you to stay behind the tape, Brown. You're suspended and I can't have a civilian on the crime scene, even if you are a witness."

The cop wouldn't, or couldn't look him in the eyes. His words stung but Warrick made himself smile and shrugged a shoulder. He didn't even hiss when the little lightning bolts of pain tore across his skin when he moved. He might be suspended, and he was pretty sure that half of the department thought he was a screw-up, but he still had his pride.

"So how long do you think it's going to take for someone to get out here? I'd like to get back to my little vacation." He grinned at his own lame joke and Thomas laughed a little.

"I have no idea, most of the force, especially the detectives and crims are out at Ely trying to get things back under control."

Warrick paused beside the open ambulance's doors. "What are you talking about?"

A wave of shock went across Kevin's face, and he rubbed his hand over his dark, short Marine Corp hair. "You mean you haven't heard?"

It took Kevin less then a minute to lay out exactly what was known about the Ely breakout. It took less then thirty seconds for Warrick to process everything he was being told.

"Son of a bitch," Warrick swore but he wasn't sure that it was just the sting of disinfectant and bactine on his freshly burnt arms. There was a part of him, deep inside, that howled at the injustice of what had happened. The state penal system had just experienced an unparalleled meltdown and dozens of hardened rapists and murderers were pouring into his city, and nobody had called him.

"Christ."


	5. Chapter IV: Baghdad, Nevada

Author's Note: No, I have not abandoned this story. Here is the next part. I would like to say that updates will soon even out and be more regular, but I don't know what my muses will be up to so I will remain silent. Special thanks to fabledtoast for the invaluable insight.

This is also my contribution to today's International Day of Femslash festivities. That being said I will be logged in over at Femslash Con as RebelByrdie all day along with my usual AIM and Yahoo presence...so drop me a line!

_Chapter IV_

_Baghdad, Nevada_

God, Catherine Willows decided, had blinked. He had blinked ,and in a hit and run moment when the almighty eye had been closed, Ely Nevada had taken a hard and fast nosedive into the depths of Hell.

It was an action movie nightmare of epic proportions. Violent orange and red flames, only now being controlled, licked at the picturesque blue sky, leaving behind acrid black smoke and dingy gray steam. Pieces of rubble, ranging from chunks of concrete the size of a small SUV to tangles of razor wire lay spread across the prison grounds. A tornado could have cut a path through the building and the damage would have been less. Then there was the human wreckage that she and her team would have to wade through. Though she was not even within the prison proper she could smell it. Death, ripe with the rank and stomach churning stench of blood, waste and putrefying flesh left in the sun, floated on the stingy breeze across the yards of yellow crime scene tape. Blue lights, dozens and dozens of them, flashed in morbid rhythm with the red and yellow of the various rescue and relief vehicles.

She was standing in the middle of purgatory. A hellish landscape that had sprung out of a seriously sick, monstrously violent and freakishly twisted sociopath terrorist-wanna-be's masturbatory fantasies.

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Gil Grissom stood beside her and they looked across the parking lot and into the prison. He was as oddly poetic and dead-on as ever. All that stood between them and Hell on Earth were orange cones and fifty members of the Nevada National Guard.

"We're _way_ outside of our jurisdiction, Griss."

_That_ was an understatement if she'd ever said one. It wasn't just the military or State Police presence she was referring to either. They had crossed over into White Pine County several miles ago. Distance was, of course, not the only factor here. They were staring at a raging war zone. If reports held true there were dozens dead and even more injured. There were, if memory served, roughly four-hundred employees at Ely. It had also been visiting day so there were also several dozen visitors and family members. Then there were the prisoners, all fifteen hundred or so. This wasn't going to be overtime. It wasn't even going to be golden time, this was platinum level work.

If they were ever allowed on scene, Catherine mused, they wouldn't be short of hands. She could count at least four different agencies within her sight and estimated that there were at least one hundred people standing around. White Pine County had help from their brothers and sisters in blue from as far as Carson City and of course Las Vegas. Cops, Detectives, CSIs, Coroners, and God only knew who else. There was also, Catherine knew, every bureaucrat in blue that had been in driving distance. It was going to be an ungodly mess.

"Do they know who is going to run this dog and pony show?" Greg Sanders spoke as he squinted in the bright desert sun, "I mean there are cops lined up like it's free doughnut day around here."

Catherine almost smiled at his comment.

They were all disheveled, they had been called in on a Saturday afternoon after all, but Greg was by far the most unkempt looking. He was dressed in a plain white tee shirt and what appeared to be the single oldest pair of khaki cargo shorts that anyone in the time-zone owned. He had, at least, changed his flip-flops for work boots, but he wore them without socks. His hair was wilder then she'd seen it in at least a couple of years. She wasn't sure what he had been pulled away from, but would bet big money that it had been way more fun then where they were. He was cute enough to have walked out of a Pac-Sun advertisement, but she wouldn't tell him that.

"Doesn't matter who's in charge because we're all going to be up to our necks in work."

Nicky, the last of them to arrive, was dressed casually in jeans and a short-sleeved blue shirt. A LVPD baseball cap covered his dark hair and tinted glasses covered his eyes, but Catherine was sure that he was tired.

She, herself, wished she had changed out of her good black jeans and red silk shirt, but hadn't thought about changing until she was halfway to Ely.

"It's going to be an enormous undertaking."

Grissom was neither more or less casual then usual and had only spoken a handful of words since his arrival. He'd been quiet lately, even for him. Catherine didn't know if it was because he was having problems with his hearing again or _other_ reasons. The other reasons were named Warrick Brown and Sara Sidle, the absent members of their team. The last month had been such a roller coaster ride, Catherine was having a hard time dealing with it. She didn't know how Grissom was dealing with it, but doubted that he had shrugged any of it off. He would talk to her if he wanted or needed her advice or opinion. It didn't happen often, but it wasn't unprecedented. When you spent worked beside a man for forty to sixty hours a week for a decade or so, words weren't always necessary.

Not that their group was, by any means, quiet. Ronnie Lake, a borrowed set of hands from mid-shift, had chattered non-stop since she and Grissom had arrived. For what she lacked in experience, she more then made up for in enthusiasm.

Catherine stood and looked at the other gathered cliques of cops and criminalists. She could already see the lines of a pissing contest being drawn. The White Pine Sheriff's Office wanted it and since it was their territory Catherine couldn't blame them. Forensically speaking, though, her team was the big fish. The Las Vegas lab was not only the best in the state, it was second only to the enormous complex of labs that made up Quantico. Their very presence spoke for itself, and Catherine could already hear the scuttlebutt. If looks could kill Lieutenant Christine Taylor, the head of the White Pine County Crime Scene Investigation Unit would have killed Catherine at least twice and Grissom three times. The animosity wasn't confined to their reputation alone, though. This wasn't the first time that Clark and White Pine Counties had collaborated on cases a handful of times and the smaller lab had been handed the short end of the stick each time. Taylor was just going to have to remove the stick from her ass. This breakout, the biggest in Nevada and possibly US history was bigger then any one of the departments and no matter how it turned out, every one of them were probably going to get royally screwed.

Yet another helicopter roared over head and Catherine threw her arm in front of her eyes when it's roaters kicked up dust as it hovered and then sank lower to land. She immediately recognized the seal on the side of the black 'copter. The silver mine, purple mountains and shining sun of the official seal of the state of Nevada meant one thing: a massive headache. She didn't have to see the doors open and the men run under the blades to know who, exactly, would be running the show. This was going strait to the top, Governor Jim Gibbons and Howard Skolnik, the Director of the Department of Corrections had arrived on the scene.

Catherine and Nick shared a look, they didn't have to vocalize their opinions of the situation and it would have been unprofessional to curse at the moment anyway. It had been four and a half hours since they'd got the call. As for as she knew the call had gone out almost immediately after the riot and escape had started. It was rare to get calls that stretched across jurisdictions, and even rarer to have a call go out with such urgency. Everyone had been waiting on pins and needles for word from the higher ups. The brass and the politicians had only been given a few hours to sort out the why and wherefores of who, where and how the investigation, and more importantly the publicity would be handled. Mobilizing paper pushers in less then five hours was as close to quick response as it got. The press had found out as quickly as the law enforcement community and were being held back by several uniformed officers at least a mile back. Not that the perimeter was stopping the news from getting out. Her Blackberry had already chimed eight times with different networks reporting on the escape. CNN, CNBC and Fox News were running live footage about every fifteen minutes. The local stations all had reporters present and foaming at the mouth, they had drove past the pulsing mass of cameras and microphones on the way.

The squeal of a bull horn caught her, and everyone else's, attention. It looked like the party was finally about to begin. The Governor, his suit pressed and impeccable, looked across the group of them. He stood on the open tailgate of one of the many SUVs. Catherine braced herself for a tsunami of _bullshit_.

"Seeing you all here, from different counties and departments, makes me very proud! Some of you came in on your days off, off shift, some of you might have been on vacation. You walked away from picnics with your children, dates with your boyfriends and girlfriends and doctor appointments to answer this horrified scream for help."

Nick chuckled, "What doctor takes an appointment on a Saturday for a lowly civil servant?"

Catherine smirked and Greg rolled his eyes. Grissom said nothing, but Catherine knew that he was similarly unimpressed with the Governor's speech. Neither she nor Grissom had voted for the idiot. He was talking an awful good game for a man who had pushed for a bill that would carve a large chunk out of the law enforcement budget, twice.

"There has never been a riot and escape on this scale in this country. What just happened, what brought us here is in the past and out of my-our control. What happens next is far more important and it is completely within our control. You men and women are the best at what you do and you know it just as well as I do. Nevada has the tools, the know-how and the _cajones_ to fix this. We will work together, as a team. There are no jurisdiction lines or department loyalties today. Today it is _us_ against _them_ and I don't just want to win, I want _total victory_. I want every slimy piece of criminal trash that walked out of this complex back locked up and prosecuted to the full extent of _Nevada_ law."

He paused to breathe, and Catherine scoffed, to soak up the limelight. She knew as well as every other person listening to him that the press was lapping this up. She couldn't work up half a damn about his re-election speech. All she wanted to know was what and how they were going to go about working the scene and ultimately the case.

"With that being said, we have allot of work to do."

Greg ran his hand across his shaggy hair and mouthed the word 'We?' to both Nick and Catherine.

"This is a big job, bigger then any one department so I've been talking to my advisers and the heads of every organization here trying to form a cohesive team that will not only stand up to the task, but to _defeat_ it."

The tension of the group went up a few notches. No matter what the Governor said, there was going to be a pissing match and Catherine had a bad feeling that she was about to be splashed.

"I'm sure you all know Howard Skolnik, the Director of the NDOC. I will be working very closely with him during this time and he and the designated liaisons for this state-wide task force will be reporting directly to me."

Catherine sighed, "Here it comes."

Gibbons looked around, as if he actually knew who he was looking at.

"The Highway Patrol is already and will continue to run statewide sweeps, searches and roadblocks to stop these felons from getting to our cities, towns and citizens. Chief Tony Almarez will, of course, be handling his men and women."

He cleared his throat, the next assignment wasn't going to be taken half-as-well. As for the tracking and capture of these hard-core, cold- killers. We will assemble a crack-team of SWAT officers who will work with the experienced men and women of the US Marshall Service and the FBI's own CATS team under the supervision of Supervisory Special Agent Noah Sherill."

After all the Governor's grandstanding about the state and it's officers and it's law he was letting the FBI take charge of one of the most vital parts of the case.

"Control and rebuilding of Ely State is going to be handled by Captain Margaret Randall and her soldiers of the Nevada Chapter of the National Guard."

That had been a given. What most of the officers were waiting on had yet to be announced. The investigation teams and who lead them was what the gathered officers, detectives, and CSIs were waiting on and salivating over. This was the sort of case that could make or break a career.

"The investigative portions of this case will be handled by a task force made up of detectives and officers from all over the state, chosen by their superiors to represent and work for their jurisdiction. The forensics of this case are of the up-most importance. The dissection of the physical evidence and deceased will lead us to finding out what happened. I have thought long and hard on this, and have decided that the Las Vegas Crime Lab, with it's record of speed, quality and high closure rate will take the lead. Conrad Ecklie has _assured_ me that his top people, along with criminalists from all over the state will work day and _night_ to process the evidence collected today.

Catherine could actually feel laser-like glares on her skin. She made a mental note to thank Ecklie for hanging a big bulls-eye on her and Grissom's backs.

"It is the belief of myself and my advisers that many of the offenders will head towards Las Vegas if they haven't arrived there already. That combined with the fact that the forensics team will be working out of Las Vegas has lead me to the decision that the LVPD headquarters will play host to the investigation task force. Detectives from all over the state, experts with valuable insights, will be working together under the supervision of one of this state's finest officers.

There was a pregnant pause, every Captain, Sergeant and Lieutenant salivated. This was the mother-load, the honeypot, the golden ticket. This was what a career investigator dreamed of every night and talked about in the locker rooms and over the water coolers.

"She has my up-most confidence, and she will be directly supervising the investigation and reporting to me. The task-force will be headed up by the LVPD's own Captain Elizabeth Curtis."

Catherine ignored the ripple of discussion, both good and bad, and turned to the other LVPD Curtis.

Sofia's face was strait, hard as a stone and unreadable. The woman had arrived with Greg and was dressed casually in blue jeans that were faded almost white at the stress points and a bright blue tee-shirt. Her usually impeccably kept hair was tousled and wind-tossed and her eyes sparkled with whatever her opinion on the matter was. Her mouth, however, stayed shut in a stern line. Catherine didn't know what was going through the Detective's mind, but she was glad she wasn't in the other woman's shoes.

* * *

Three hours and what felt like thousands of photographs later, Catherine knew she had only just scraped the surface. Her team, Grissom, Nick and Greg, had been assigned to the group that was processing the exercise yard or what was left of it at least.

Kennan Munroe, a CSI out of Carson City and Greg were working in a forty-foot square grid with the cutting edge DeltaSphere 3000 scanner. Catherine wasn't a techno-whiz but she understood that the scanner was using incredibly fast lasers and high-definition digital cameras to create a three-dimensional computer representation of the entire scene. That, along with the photographs she was taking, the video that Maria Cardoza from Washo County Forensics was taking and the sketch Nicky was doing from the remaining guard tower would give them a clear and exact picture of the crime scene.

She looked back down at the hard-packed earth and lined up her next shot. It was yet another bullet casing. They had a few hours of natural light left and then they would have to bring in heavy duty lamps and spotlights to continue the investigation. She had no idea what was being uncovered inside. It couldn't be any worse then her little piece of Hell. There were _fourteen_ bodies in the exercise yard alone. Ten of the bodies were prisoners who had been killed during the riot. Catherine couldn't work up sympathy for their passing. The other four bodies, though, tugged at her. There were two guards, their nameplates identified them as Clyde Samson and Mike Adams. Samson had taken a point-blank gunshot to the back of the head. From what little that was left of his face, Catherine winced, it had been a very large caliber bullet.

She paused over his body, "How did someone get something this high caliber into the prison?"

Grissom looked up from the dead prisoner he'd been photographing, "That is yet another question we're here to answer."

His floppy straw hat shaded his eyes, but they were as sharp and full of questions as ever. If he had been distracted by his thoughts or recent personal problems it didn't show. Not that she had expected it to, nothing interfered with Grissom's work.

"This is going to be a very long night."

Catherine chuckled, Gil Grissom, master of the understatement.

Catherine let her camera dangle on it's strap around her neck, "Well we can thank Ecklie and the Governor for putting us in this _lovely_ position." She bent down and picked up one of the luke-warm bottles of water that someone had brought them and drank deeply. "This could actually be the biggest single case in the history of forensics." She drained the rest of the bottle and sighed, "And I gotta tell you I think we're being set up for a crucifixion." Though Gil Grissom cared little to nothing about politics, she knew he was more aware of them then most people realized. He knew just as well as she did that their team was being railroaded. It was a coup for the department, of course, but putting the graveyard shift on point was a mistake. She wanted to work the case but knew that they were more likely to crash and burn then to succeed. She smelled a rat: a well connected rat with a grudge against the night shift.

"I've got someone over here! I NEED A MEDIC!"

Both Catherine and Grissom turned towards the pile of rubble that a team had been gingerly sifting through. It was difficult to see what exactly had happened, but it couldn't be good. No one could be buried under so much weight and be okay. Two men and a woman, all clad in green tee shirts that identified them as Nye County Rescue, were moving around the rubble with practiced ease. Their movements had caught everyone's eye. In a field full of death, every investigator looked up and hoped to see a sign of life and survival. The EMTs eased the injured man onto a back-board and secured him with straps and a neck brace.

A few yards away Ronnie Lake stood up from where she'd been working and moved as if to help. Sofia Curtis, who had been interviewing one of the 'scared strait' boys nearby, grabbed her shoulder and held her in place. Catherine winced at the Detective's coldness, but knew she would have done the same. CSIs could only speak for the dead, they could do precious little for the living. Ronnie, like everyone else, would have only been in the way.

The rescue workers rushed him across the yard towards the make-shift ER that had been set up in the prison's mess hall. Catherine's breath caught in her throat when she saw the bloody and broken khaki-clad man. He looked like he was barely twenty-five and his groans, that gurgled and bubbled with blood, were the only thing that told her that he wasn't already dead. The smell of burnt flesh, blood and excrement hit her nose when they passed her. Despite all her time as a CSI her stomach rolled and she gagged to the point of almost vomiting. Four hours north of home and it felt like she had fallen into a war zone.

"Welcome to Baghdad, Nevada."

Her own words made her gag again.

Author's Note Part II - I borrowed the names of the Governor, the Director of Corrections, and the Head of the Highway Patrol all of Nevada. I didn't ask permission and I'm reasonably sure they are unaware of the use of their names. I wanted to add a touch of realism to the story and I'm only using their names. All actions, behaviors, speeches and assorted whatnot having to do with these people is purely fiction of my own creation.


	6. Chapter V: Sawbones and Code Monkeys

Author's Note: This is the chapter that DID NOT WANT TO BE WRITTEN! I had to do research, then write it which took a pretty good amount of time. Then editing over the holidays was delayed...then after I finally got it edited my internet decided to be difficult. So here FINALLY is Chapter V! For the love of all things holy - Read, Enjoy and if you have time leave a review or whatnot!

_Chapter V_

_Sawbones and Code Monkeys_

Dr Kyle Porter was suturing up the latest in a very long line of nasty gashes. Hundreds of scrapes, cuts, stab and gunshot wounds had overwhelmed him. The steady flow of suffering and bitching had slowed to a trickle. His small on-site medical ward had filled to it's maximum capacity within the first ten minutes after the guards had _finally_ brought the riot to an end. He and his small staff of three orderlies, a nurse and physicians assistant, most of them called in on their day or shift off, had been forced to convert the mess hall into a triage center. The first doctors from nearby WBR Hospital, arrived an hour after the riot had ended. He'd already lost three critical patients by then. Even with the official riot over there had been several dozen more patients that had desperately needed medical attention.

Porter had been in the bottom quarter of his class at medical school and had only barely completed his residency and internship. Despite his grades and less then stellar showing during training, his father had welcomed him to the family practice with open arms. Three years and four charges of malpractice later his father hadn't been so enthusiastic. His career had started to truly flounder when his uncle and sister started to loan him out to volunteer clinics. That had also when Jillian, his first wife, had decided that being married to a doctor wasn't all brunches and . Everyone, Jillian included, had assumed he would be giving breast enhancements and tummy-tucks to celebrities, not lancing boils for welfare cases and crack heads.

Then there had been wife number two, Miriam. She, at least, hadn't cared about money and prestige. All she cared about was his prescription pad and whatever chemical escape it had given her. After Miriam had trashed what little reputation he had left and damn near cost him his medical license, _he_ divorced _her_. The ink hadn't even been dry on the divorce papers when the help found her face down in the bathtub. He suspected it had been an accidental overdose, but hadn't cared enough to follow up on the matter.

The job at Ely had been the absolute bottom of the barrel. It paid the bills, both his and Alimony Bitch Jillian's, but that was about it. He punched the clock, took care of the scum of the earth at the tax payers expense, and then he punched out.

He hadn't signed up for real-life MASH. That show hadn't even been that good and Kyle wasn't a GI Joe sort of guy. Guts and glory were for heroes, he was a Doctor for God's sake, not some idiot with delusions of grandeur. He swiped his forearm, well above his latex glove, across his sweat-drenched forehead. He couldn't t remember the last time he'd worked so hard or had so many patients in such a small amount of time. He had _better_ be getting combat pay or something because the situation was getting ridiculous. He was exhausted, he ached and he could barely make his fingers do the simplest suture work, it had to be over soon.

"DOC!"

Three EMTs, sweaty and covered in grime, carried a litter into the makeshift trauma center. Porter tied his last suture up with three quick knots and ignored the hiss of pain his actions caused. They were a little sloppy, but it was only a prisoner. He looked over at the guard. "Go lock him up."

Kyle shed his bloody latex gloves on the already littered and dingy linoleum floor. He reached for the nearby box and pulled a new pair out with only a few seconds of wasted time. His smock, already splattered with blood and fluids, needed to be changed. From the amount of blood dripping from the litter and onto the floor,though, such niceties would have to wait.

He looked down at the patient and felt his heart sink. He recognized the dust and blood coated face. Familiar features peeked out from between the collar and straps that held the man's neck and head still. Glazed eyes stared up at the ceiling above and blinked closed sporadically Tyler Goodsong was as good guard, a good man, and one of the few prison employees that Kyle considered a friend. The day had been so hectic, so wild and full of blood and death, that he hadn't even spared a thought for the man. Tyler had a wife, Kyle had attended the ceremony. He had a pretty wife and a full life ahead of him. He wasn't a murderer or a tweaking junkie, he was a good man. A good man who looked very close to death. His legs were a torn and twisted mess of blood, burnt flesh and shattered bone. Kyle observed and categorized the injuries automatically and felt dread settle over him like a wet wool blanket.

He had been in over his head since the very first gunshot. He had known that in his head and his heart but had worked anyway. It had been the only thing he'd known how to do. His skills, though, only stretched so far. He couldn't do this. He couldn't fix Tyler. He didn't have the ability, the equipment and even if he did there wasn't enough time. Panic and adrenaline poured into his system and his heart thundered in his chest. A cold sweat trickled down his neck and back and Kyle felt helpless. He felt powerless and when he looked at Tyler's face he knew that there was no hope. Kyle's hands froze, his everything froze. He _couldn't _do it. He couldn't save Tyler. The young guard was already dead, his brain just hadn't figured it out yet.

Drake Bishop LPN harbored no delusions of grandeur. He wanted to put in enough hours to qualify for a real job at a real hospital and the hell out of prison. He didn't like tending to criminals, but he was good at it and took pride in that fact. He wasn't surprised to see Kyle Porter freeze. Drake was disgusted but not especially surprised. Dr Dumb-Ass, as the staff called him, was utterly useless. Drake was surprised that the man had lasted as long as he had. He pushed past him, unconcerned that Porter was technically his boss. "We need to get fluids and blood into him now." Drake looked at the EMTs, but only one of them nodded.

"The other two are Rescue Squad, but I'm IV trained."

Drake scowled, An EMT and a nurse were hardly qualified to handle _this_ case."I need one of them to go down to _the hallway_ and get the doctor down there."

The woman, young and blonde, nodded and ran towards the interior door that would take her to the makeshift morgue.

"There's another."

Drake snapped his head to the right. One of the guards, he didn't know his name, nodded his head. "He's been tending to the civilians. He's some kind of professor but he's also a surgeon."

Drake didn't have look back at Tyler's broken body to make the decision, "Get him. _Now_."

* * *

Al Robbins always planned his Saturdays weeks beforehand. He used his precious Saturdays to spend time with his sons, rehearse with his band, watch terrible movies, and make love to his wife. Working in a war zone had not been in his plans, but he could hardly say no. He had been handed an opportunity. It could easily be the crown jewel of his career or the beginning of a fast slide into forced retirement.

The prison had a room that could loosely be called a morgue. It only had two coolers and one ancient autopsy table. It would have all fit into one of the storage closets at the lab in Las Vegas.

The victims were laid on the floor of a single long hallway. Only about half of the dead men had been given the dignity of being in proper body bags. The rest were simply covered by sheets and curtains and whatever other scraps of clothe that had been laying around. Guards, prisoners and civilians alike lay shoulder to shoulder along each wall. There was only a narrow walkway between their carefully placed feet. Robbins weaved around the corpses, coroners, CSIs and techs, directing traffic and giving directions in a calm, patient voice. His crutches tapped against the concrete and he shifted his weight with the expertise and ease that came from years of experience. His steps were like his work needed to be, quick and careful. Identification was the main priority at the moment, followed by establishing time of death. It was a daunting task that was proceeding at a snail's pace. It would be much easier if he had a list of inmates and employees but one of the computer kids was still working on that. Technology was very useful when it worked but right now it wasn't. So they would take fingerprints, photographs and keep records and notes cohesive and intact. It was going to take a minor miracle to keep everything strait.

"DOCTOR!"

A young woman, one of the many rescue workers, barreled into the hallway at a sprint. She skid to stumbling stop just shy of the lines of bodies. She was filthy, covered in dust and soot and someone's blood. Her blonde hair was in a tangled mess and her face was flushed scarlet red. She was bent over nearly double, trying to both catch her breathe and speak at the same time.

"A guard." Her words tumbled out of her mouth in a rush. "He's hurt-" She stopped to suck in breathe and her wheezing made Robbins wonder if she might be asthmatic. "Hurt bad." She continued disjointedly, "And we need your help to save him."

That was all Albert Robbins needed to hear, the living trumped the dead every time. He handed his clipboard to one of the many CSIs, from Reno if he wasn't mistaken, and worked his way around the many corpses and down the hall.

The trip to the cafeteria didn't take long. He looked around and saw only one patient. Kyle Porter, the only staff doctor at Ely, was standing stock still in the middle of the room while two other men were trying to save the patient. Robbins pushed past him and looked to the male nurse"What do we have?"

The young man in blood-splattered blue scrubs and a a sweat bead covered bald head looked up from the patient momentarily. "Tyler Goodsong, guard. He's approximately twenty-seven years old and in bad shape. They pulled him out from under a _lot_ of rubble. His legs look really bad."

Really bad was one of the biggest understatements Robbins had ever heard. He felt two acute and sharp pains in his legs. It was phantom or sympathy pain because he had lost his own legs years ago. He clenched his teeth against the pain, psychological or not it still _hurt_ and started a basic examination.

"How's his head?"

The new voice made Robbins look up from his work for a moment.

The man was African American, and in his late forties, give or take a year. His face, made noteworthy by pock-marked cheeks and sharp, intelligent eyes, was interesting but not conventionally handsome. A neat and probably properly pressed at some point suit, complete with tie, sat comfortably over a well built frame. Robbins thought that he might look familiar but had no name to go with the face.

"We can't do anything" The man continued in a pleasant but firm baritone, "about his legs unless we address the head trauma."

He offered Robbins his hand, "Dr Ray Langston." Al shook it briskly, "Al Robbins, ME. Now that introductions are out of the way let's see if we can't save this man's life."

They each moved to one side of the crude operating table.

"Head and neck was immobilized and it looks like we have two lines going in. Ringers and O Negative blood." Robbins scowled, "Neither does any good if he keeps losing it out of his legs."

Langston checked Tyler's eyes with a small flashlight, "Pupils are sluggish but equal and reactive. I think we have some brain trauma but we might be able to get it under control."

"What do you have in stock for that?" Robbins directed the question over his shoulder at Porter. He had brought his medical bag, of course, but that was more for coroner's work or the occasional lab cut or burn. He had nothing for a full out field-surgery.

No answer came and both men turned, Robbins balancing his weight on his crutches, "PORTER WHAT DO YOU HAVE FOR A HEAD INJURY?"

Porter, who still looked completely dazed, stuttered a moment, "All I have is Manitol."

Langston moved from the man's head and to his chest, and probed the ribs carefully expert's fingers. "Not the best choice by a long shot but it'll have to do. Go mix up a bag."

Porter didn't move.

"NOW PORTER!" Robbins's patience had obviously worn thin. "And" he added, "Get a bag of antibiotics ready, the strongest you have."

Robbins and Langston, with the Nurse and EMT's help, pulled on paper smocks over their clothes and latex gloves over their hands. There were no masks available, but neither gave it too much thought. Infection wasn't going to have time to set in if they let Tyler Goodsong die.

Grim and stoic in the face of a very bad situation, Robbins worked down the left leg and Langston the right. They had never worked together, but as doctors they had to trust in each other's skills. A wrong diagnosis or missed sign could be deadly right now. There were both open and closed fractures, that much was immediately visible, but the extent of damage was still in question. The human body was strong, often stronger then one could fathom, but hours under hundreds of pounds of concrete wasn't exactly a normal situation.

Even if, by some miracle his legs hadn't been broken, they definitely were both broken, crush injuries were a problem in and of themselves. At the very least they had compartment syndrome and deadly swelling to deal with. At the worst, well the tissue of the legs could already be dead and rotting.

"I have no pedal pulse."

Robbins looked across the table at Langston. The coca-skinned man had both hands on Tyler's right foot. Both of them, Robbins especially, knew what that meant. The right leg was the worst case scenario. The damage was extensive and there was not allot of hope. There were broken bones and ripped flesh, crush damage and blood loss. There was no pulse in the foot, no blood flowing all the way to the toes. Necrosis had already set in. The leg was dying and there was no saving it.

"I've got a thready one here."

The leg that Robbins was working on was certainly less damaged, but it too looked horrific. It had burns covering most of it and two bones poked out of the charred skin of the shin.

"If we don't stabilize him now, he will never last until the next evac 'copter arrives." Langston's face was set in stern lines and his voice was almost a whisper.

"They may be able to save the left if we set the bones and soak it in bactine here. The right though-"

Both doctors knew what had to happen.

Parker returned with two IV bag of Manitol mix and hung it on the IV stand with shaking hands. The nurse batted him away and smoothly hooked a line into the bag so it too would drip into the patient's bloodstream. It would, hopefully, lessen the swelling in Tyler's brain. They had neither MRI or CAT scan, but knew it was better to be safe then sorry when it came to possible brain injuries. The antibiotics came next, but if they couldn't get the man stabilized it was going to be a waste of fluids.

"Porter we need two cut down kits and a bone-saw."

He blinked, "A bone-saw?"

Robbins nodded and without missing a beat carefully put a hand on either side of the open wound.

"Quickly, please."

Langston's words were terse, and he didn't l bother to look up. His eyes were locked on his hands and their delicate work. He carefully pushed the tibia back inside the skin and tried to line the snapped pieces of bone back up. The fibula came next and Tyler jerked against the movement as Langston had to manipulate the smaller bone with more force to get it back inside of the muscle and into the more or less proper position. Robbins, closer to the leg, wrapped a pressure bandage around the freshly re-aligned leg while Langston wrapped rubber tubing around the upper thigh of the right leg.

They were trying to prep for one of the most dangerous field surgeries in medicine. A trans-femoral amputation was highly technical and very dangerous in a prepped and sterile operating room. He couldn't remember the last time he'd even heard of someone attempting an emergency on-site trans-femoral amputation. Vietnam, maybe, he had never done anything like this.

"Have you ever done this before?" Robbins had to ask, if only to break the tense silence.

Langston looked up and smiled, a prominent gap between his two front teeth made Robbins think of Sara Sidle for a moment which was actually somewhat comforting. "No, I'm mostly in research and research pathology these days, and the occasional pro-bono surgery. I haven't done anything like this since my ER rotation, and no, I've never specifically done _this_.

Robbins smiled despite the situation, "A fellow sawbones _and_ a fellow pathologist. I'm with the Clark County Coroners Office."

Langston tied off his crude tourniquet two inches above where the healthy flesh of the man's thigh ended. "So I'm guessing you haven't done any amputation lately either." His eyes slid, on purpose or accidentally, to the Robbin's obvious prosthetic legs.

"No."

The first and most important step was to clamp the femoral artery. It was one of the biggest blood vessels in the body and when transected it could lead to bleed out in mere minutes. Tyler didn't have any blood to spare which is why they had used a tourniquet as well. Once the clamps were in place on the femoral and two large arterial branches, they began the real work.

The next thirty minutes were long and grueling for all the men in the cafeteria. Tyler's guttural screams echoed wildly while they sliced through his flesh and cut through the bone of his leg. Though the limb was dying, his nerves had not yet stopped working. Robbins and Langston grit their teeth and continued. Pain now, no matter how horrible, would be worth it if Tyler saw tomorrow. Amputation, Robbins knew, was intense but they could not give him any painkiller. They were working in a prison environment there were no narcotics on hand and even if there had been any first year medical student knew better then to mix head injuries and morphine. Neither doctor had ever imagined a more hellish procedure and Tyler Goodsong probably felt like he was actually in Hell. The doctors sweated and the patient bled and the time blurred.

Finally, hands shaking and nerves jangled, Robbins and Langston had stabilized the patient. They wrapped the fresh stump with clean gauze and pressure bandages before the trained emergency crew came in and wheeled Goodsong off to the helicopter.

"They're transporting him to Desert Palms I think." Langston sounded as exhausted as Robbins felt. The black man pulled off his bloody gloves and let them fall to the littered floor. "They have a good orthopedic team there."

Robbins, his own stumps aching with both real and sympathy pain, nodded then took off is own gloves. "I have to get back to the hall."

Langston stripped off his bloody smock, "Need an extra pair of hands?"

Robbins chuckled and motioned for him to come along. Despite the less then spectacular way they'd met, he could already tell that he and Ray Langston would get along just fine.

* * *

It was creepy, there was no other word for it. It was definitely, totally and completely creepy. It wasn't even normal prison creepy either. She was in and out of prisons all the time. Well not_ in _prison, not her personally. She had never done anything illegal in her life. Well unless you counted a joint in high school, which she didn't. A little weed couldn't hold up against rape and murder. No, she went between all of the Nevada correctional facilities and worked on their computers.

She had a Masters Degree and a resume that rivaled most of the industry's heavy hitters and she was working 100 hours a week freelance just to pay her rent. It was all thanks to good ol' Dad. Jason Rickers had been a great father, a phenomenal computer programer but he had never been known for his ethics. The Industry had never forgiven her dad and everyone knew that Kaylie was a chip off of the old block. Daddy's Little Girl had left Silicon Valley for Las Vegas with dreams of running casino systems and doing groundbreaking security algorithms. Programers talked, though, and their circles were small and tight. Kaylie Rickers was persona-non-grata, the sins of the father had condemned her to mediocrity and free-lance scraps.

The only reason she had landed the Prison IT job was because she had slashed her fee down to the bone. So she had spent the last _three_ years of her harried and helter-skelter life bouncing between each of Nevada's prisons like some kind of felonious tennis ball. Ely had always seemed like the safest. It had the tightest security and the most well trained guards. It had fences and monitoring systems, it was a fortress. The fortress had been ripped apart brick by brick and set on fire. Howard Skolnik had personally called her and told her to get to Ely immediately and when the man who signed the paychecks said jump she pulled out the trampoline. They wanted tape and logs and lists and everything her pretty little system could give them and they wanted it yesterday.

It was hell navigating her bug around the roadblocks and then security. There were more cops at the prison then she had ever seen in her life, and she'd lived in L.A. for five years. It was like someone had declared that it was free doughnut day or something. Not that all cops ate doughnuts. They were good thought, doughnuts not cops. Well of course cops were good, most of them. All the cops _here_ were good of course. About that time the cop had told her to shut up before waving her through the barricade. Kaylie still wasn't sure if he had been laughing or growling at her. A man in camo with a really big gun had escorted her across the devastated parking lot and to the front door. It had been visiting day and there were still people, normal people who had just come to visit family members who had gone astray, milling about. Most of the people were women and children. Really scared women and children. A wave of disgust rolled through her. These were family members of the inmates: their wives, mothers and children. Apparently there was no honor amongst thieves. Robin Hood movies were full of it.

A cop with a rumpled khaki uniform and a bad haircut came to escort her through the prison. She was pretty happy to see that he had a gun and a Taser hanging on his belt. She knew that the prisoners were locked up again but it made her feel safer. The first stop was, as always, at the desk. Her messenger bag had been searched several times already but she let the desk sergeant look through it anyway. She had checked in with Luke Howard almost every time she came to Ely. Today he looked exhausted, his face was grim and his usually impeccable uniform was disheveled and covered with soot and what looked like blood.

"You going to check the systems, huh, Kaylie?

His voice was always gravely, but today it was rougher then usual. There were large bruises, deep purple and red, across his neck and jaw. He had helped stop the riot and had apparently went right back to work. She couldn't imagine what he had been through. Well, she had watched _Oz _on HBO so she could probably try but she didn't think that would be a pretty idea.

Howard checked over her laptop, PDA and other tools of the trade that she carried with her the same way he always had. His hands shook a little, but he didn't miss a beat. If she wasn't a teensy bi afraid of Howard she would give him a hug because it looked like he needed one. She was more then a teensy bit afraid of him, though so she smiled at him instead.

"Yeah, and The Boss wants me running point on the security system."

Howard turned his head and sent a long glare at the cop with her. "Well you be careful, Little Lady, stay with the _nice officer_ at all times."

The cop, his nameplate identified him as D. Pierce, rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat, "I thought all of the inmates were um" He paused and his eyes darted around, "contained."

Kaylie winced at his statement. Apparently all of the good cops were off doing other things. Maybe Howard would go with her instead.

She was walking through a war zone with a man who was probably more likely to pee his pants then help her. It was okay, though. She was okay. Everything was totally and completely okay. She had to keep telling herself that and ignore the naggy voice that reminded her that she didn't get paid nearly enough for this job.

The Administrative Wing was quiet and most importantly secure. As secure as any prison area could be. The muscles in her back and shoulders relaxed a bit and she breathed a sigh of relief. The only way into the Ad Wing was by key card access and four digit pin number. Pin numbers could be figured out, especially by smart con-men but even the slickest cons couldn't get their hands on a magnetic imprint machine in the joint. In fact the cards were issued at the Head Office in Carson City, and all of the personnel's cards had been, according to Officer Pierce, accounted for.

Kaylie slid her card through the machine and waited for the tone before quickly keying in her pin number. The whole system, one she had installed only a year and a half ago, was a relatively simple set up. All the computers were networked together in a nice, neat, user friendly Windows XP package. All of the prison workers, from the Warden to the janitor had an alpha-numeric access code and password. The computers in the Ad Wing, however, were the only ones in the entire complex with full access. The best place to work from would be the server room, but at the moment that room was inaccessible. Inaccessible as in it was all the way across the building where all the convicts were being kept. The closest and most comfortable office was Ellen's. It was on the right and the door was closed. Then again Ellen had probably left hours ago and had closed the door behind her.

Kaylie balanced her bag on her hip and fished Dave, her laptop, out of the bag. Dave was her baby, built from scratch and dreams, he was the closest thing to a steady boyfriend she'd had in the last five years. She opened the computer up and punched the button to power it up.

"That's a nice computer."

Officer Pierce smiled at her, "I have one like that at home."

Kaylie forced a smile, she hated it when people compared her computer to an off-the-shelf piece of junk. "I'm sure."

She opened up the door and bumped it open with her hip, "C'mon Officer, you can help me plug some of the wires in if you're a good boy."

The first thing that hit her was the smell. There are some things that stuck with a person. Certain songs, specific textures, and smells, the brain cataloged them the same way a computer cataloged data. Somethings a computer never deleted and some things a person never forgot. She smelled death and her stomach turned sourly. It hit Pierce next, and despite her first thoughts about him, he threw his arm out to stop her.

"OH MY GOD!"

Her voice drowned whatever he was saying out.

Ellen Powers lay on her own office floor, spread eagle and as still as a statue. Kaylie didn't need an EMT or a doctor to tell her that Ellen was dead, it was painfully obvious. Hot bile rushed up her throat and she clapped her hand over her mouth. She pushed past Pierce and retreated to the hallway. She knew that Ellen's body was still on the floor and knew that the smell would quickly reach her nose again. Her movement had been futile at best but she needed the space even if it was just a few feet. She had to kill her gag reflex and wipe the tears from her eyes, she had to get herself back under control. Pierce keyed up his radio and called for backup or whatever. She put her back against the far wall and hugged her laptop to her chest. She had worked with Ellen, spoken with her every time she'd come to Ely. She had a son who had just started college and was planning to go on a cruise with her husband. She had been planning to go at least. Now she would never go to Jamaica. . It was okay, she was okay, it was going to be okay. It had to be okay. Kaylie wiped at her eyes furiously, she couldn't let herself breakdown. She had a job to do and crying like a baby wasn't going to get it done.

More cops came into the hallway, some of them were in uniforms and others were in plainclothes. Someone else, a coroner or something, came in with a gurney and body bag. Another man followed with a camera and a small suitcase. His black vest told her that he was a Clark County CSI. He was from Vegas too. His shaggy hair and very casual clothes marked him as one of the many who had been called in on their day off. Another thing he had in common with her.

Shaggy and Sort of Sexy turned to one of the cops that had rushed into the room. "Hey Sofia, what's the situation?" The blonde, Sofia she assumed, had a gold shield clipped to her belt and a gun riding on her hip. If TV had taught her anything about cops then this was the Detective. The uniformed officers all turned to listen to her when she spoke. Everyone paid close attention to Detective Blonde and Serious's words.

"Assistant Warden Ellen Powers. Apparently only one warden is here over the weekends and this was her turn. The prison's computer tech-"

All eyes turned to her and Kaylie felt another wave of nausea roll through her stomach. She would rather be somewhere else, anywhere but here.

"-found her when she came up to run the computer systems for us."

Sexy Shaggy nodded then turned back to Kaylie, "You didn't touch anything did you? You or Officer Pierce?"

She shook her head, "Just the door knob. I left the room when I saw Ellen."

He looked tired but smiled at her anyway. "Well that's good." He quirked his eyebrows, "Hey can you clear one of the other offices for her, I bet-" He smiled again, "I'm sorry I didn't get your name."

Kaylie pushed a stubborn strand of hair back behind her ear again, "Kaylie Rickers, code monkey for hire."

He smiled again and held his hand out to shake, "Greg Sanders, CSI and uh all around awesome dude."

Kaylie smiled despite herself and shifted Dave to one arm. "Nice to meet you, Greg."

The lead cop, Sofia, cleared her throat a little louder then necessary. "Greg if you'll see to Ms. Powers, I will set Miss Rickers up in the Warden's office."

It was, Kaylie decided, the nicest shut up and get to work she'd ever heard.

Sofia unlocked Warden McDaniel's office and left her to her work. Kaylie smiled at her as she left. The blonde detective was way tense and personally Kaylie was glad she wasn't going to look over her shoulder. She wouldn't mind Greg, though.

"Wow, Kaylie" she mumbled to herself, "focus already."

An hour passed and Kaylie did her best to ignore what was going on just a few dozen feet away. It was actually easier then she thought it would be. She had her own problem to deal with. A big fat jack ass of a computer that wasn't cooperating with her.

"Hey."

Kaylie looked up from the computer and was relieved to see that it was Greg the CSI and not Sofia the cop at the door.

"How's it going in here?"

"It's going, not great or quickly, but it's going. Dave, Jerry and I still have a lot to do."

Greg waggled his eyebrows, obviously amused, "Dave and Jerry?"

She patted the laptop and lifted the PDA she had in her left hand. "Tools of my trade."

Greg wandered across the carpet and over to one of the chairs in front of the desk. He glanced over his shoulder and then sat down with a sigh, "No rush, Kaylie, we are going to be here the rest of the day and all night and probably into tomorrow."

"Yeah," Kaylie sighed, "Me too. This is totally not how I planed to spend my weekend."

She watched the readout on her PDA and typed one handed. Dave hummed away as it ran through the files.

"What are you doing that's going to take _so _long?"

She looked up, "Dave is pulling up a digital copy of what the mainframe should look like. When it's pulled I will sync Jerry." She wiggled the PDA in her hand, "To both computers and it will search for inconsistencies. Or it should at least, I'm running into problems. Probably because of all the alarms and chaos. The system is just _freaking out_."

Greg stretch his arms above his head and his legs out in front of him and grunted when something audibly popped, "Freaking out? Is that a technical term?"

"Smart ass."

She would have said more, but something on the screen caught her attention. She read through the information, but it didn't make any sense. "Okay."

Greg came around the desk to join her, "What did you find?"

Kaylie abandoned her own equipment and focused on the Warden's computer.

"It's what I'm not finding that's worrying me." She scowled and quickly typed in a string of commands then another. She attacked the mouse with the same vigor. She alternated back and forth and while he knew his way around computers, Greg had no idea what she was doing. He had skills but the woman beside him was some sort of computer magician.

"None of it is here." She hit the desk with a clenched fist, "How can it not be here?"

Greg shook his head, "What's not where?"

She sighed and pushed a copper strand of hair out of her face, "The entire system is wiped."

Greg blinked, "I-um don't follow."

She tapped in a few more commands, "Something-someone has wiped the entire program. It's like they hit the big factory re-set button."

Greg ran his hand over his already disheveled hair, "Which program?" Greg asked, knowing enough to be concerned and confused at the same time.

Kaylie paled, "Forget the button, it's a dumb comparison. It's the _big_ program. It's corrupted, the whole enchilada and guacamole!" I can't pull up a single file, not a single name, nothing."

Greg still didn't follow exactly, "So this is bad?"

She sighed, "Bad doesn't even begin to cover it. This is the _princess_ of all _bad shit_ and _shenanigans_. This is a prison without a functioning list of it's inmates. I can't pull up prisoner GPS coordinate, security feeds, video, _nothing_. I mean I have nothing here. Ely went all digital two years ago. We are flying blind."

Greg's eyebrows flew up, "Someone _hacked _the prison system?"

"No." Her face was grim and her fingers stopped moving on the keyboard. "When I say this system is unhackable, I mean it is totally unhackable. There are no outside access points. The internet-enabled system is running off a completely different server and it can't even be accessed from this computer. The Administrative staff were all issued laptops for email and internet use. This is a closed system. It's a fortress, an island, it is untouchable. All the prisons run on closed systems which is why I was hired to travel back and forth to keep them running. There is no remote access point. Whoever did this, whoever destroyed the program not only knew _exactly_ what they were doing, they had to be _here_ to do it."

"You mean in the prison?"

Kaylie stood, "No, I mean in one of these offices. The computers in the Ad Wing are the only ones that have the ability to load anything to the system the rest are only networked in for use."

She rested her head in her hands, and let out a long suffering sigh, "My boss is not going to like this."

Greg sagged against the wall behind the desk and Kaylie's chair. 'Neither is mine."

Understatement did not even begin to cover it.

Author's Note Part II - This chapter had several nerd refrences in it, and I own none of them. Another intersting note is that this marks my first use of Langston as a charecter. I'm actually pretty pleased with the charecter especially since I can only catch CSI every once and a while these days. Another intresting note is that while I usually don't base my original charecters on any one person, I have to admit that Felicia Day's Codex from the Guild had a pretty heavy influence on Kaylie. Also yes, Kaylie is indeed named after the Firefly charecter.


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